


Three Deep

by Barb Cummings (Rahirah), dutchbuffy, Sylviavolk2000



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:55:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5779567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Barb%20Cummings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchbuffy/pseuds/dutchbuffy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylviavolk2000/pseuds/Sylviavolk2000





	Three Deep

---  
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# Episode One: Alley Oops

  
  
****

Los Angeles, city of lost Angels. A city full of predators, and prey. You see it at night... it used to shine. The world just isn't what it used to be. 

It started in an alley (of course it did, it always does). It ended--huh. Ended, now there's a relative term. From dust thou art, to dust thou shalt return. They changed the world, and it's still changing. The earth shudders as they go by. What's inside the shells they wear? That is the question. 

Ladies and gentlemen, our champions. Same old, brand new. Alley after alley. Reclaiming territory, and sifting dust. [So much dust.](http://www.teaattheford.net/admin/filedeliver.php?g=3Deepupcomings&src=upcoming_1.wmv)

# reading options

\--> [read the episode here on this page](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php?id=1876) (light on dark)  
\--> [read the episode at the Ford](http://www.teaattheford.net/conversation.php?id=1876) (dark on light)  
\--> [view the episode as a lettersize PDF ](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/pdfs/3D1-1876LR.pdf)  
\--> [view the episode as an A4 PDF](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/pdfs/3D1-1876A4.pdf)  
  


# table of contents

  


  * [previously in the 'verse...](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#32239)
  * [episode credits](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#32240)
  * [Teaser](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#34296)
  * [Act One](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#31828)
  * [Act Two](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#31829)
  * [Act Three](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#31830)
  * [Act Four](http://www.teaattheford.net/virtual/episode.php#33929)



 

## previously in the 'verse...

Hurry up with that popcorn! Look at the time, look at the link, it's already started.... 

[previously in the 'verse....](http://www.teaattheford.net/admin/filedeliver.php?g=3Dpreviouslys&src=previously_on_ep1a.wmv)

  
  
  


## episode credits

rolling the credits for the episode: 

_construction & site/set design:_ vrya  
_set decoration:_ Cyn  
_camera & lighting:_ diane 

_showrunner & line producer:_ macha 

_Joss of the storyboard:_ Barb 

_story editors:_ db, Sylvia 

_directed by:_ the members of the Ford 

_written by:_  
Barb  
Cyn  
Dori  
dutchbuffy  
Kalima  
macha  
Sylvia 

with gratitude to Joss Whedon,  
whose play it is,  
for twelve seasons of story. 

_beta editing:_  
Cyn  
dutchbuffy  
Pip  
Sylvia 

_blending edit:_  
alcibiades  
Barb  
dutchbuffy  
Kalima  
macha  
Pip  
Plin  
Sylvia 

_last-pass edit:_ Barb 

_copy editing:_ Plin, macha 

_previously intro:_ diane  
_previously voiceover:_ Pip  
_ep description:_ Plin 

Alley Oops illustration: Cyn  
collage by: vrya 

  
  
  


## Teaser

It was raining dragons. Hallelujah. 

No one in the alley was in a mood to sing. Downtown L.A. had become a gigantic storm drain: spiraling streams of demons, flying critters and one lumbering giant all converging on the mouth of one narrow, grimy alley. The largest dragon strafed the alley, its sulfurous fires searing the graffiti-splattered walls and turning the rain to acid fog. A second dragon wheeled overhead, challenging the CNN helicopter to single combat. Aircraft and animal collided, and plummeted from the sky with an eerie screech. Sirens wailed, police radios stuttered non-stop, and tenement dwellers for miles around hung out of their windows with beers in their hands to watch the goings-on in the sky. It was better than football. 

*

Half-blinded by icy curtains of rain, Spike fought on, his sodden duster dragging him down. He was going to get that dragon before Angel did, fuck the scaly bastard. He knew just where Smaug's soft spot was. Right over the heart. 

Illyria plowed past Spike, wearing her mask of rage like armor. Bone crunched and shattered in her hands. Only a puny handful of demons could brave the alley's narrow confines at once, a number of deaths entirely insufficient to fill the Wesley-shaped hole within her. 

Gunn collapsed against a dumpster, curling into himself. The burning rain streamed into his wounds like molten lead. He couldn't hear his own moans over the drumbeat pounding of rain on his skull. Something broke and gushed inside as he sagged back against the garbage bin, and he slid down the grimy metal to the ground, his eyes closing with the finality of a coffin lid shutting. 

Angel's sword parried the blades of demons and knives of sleet alike. He hadn't managed to kill the damn dragon yet. All his efforts at leaping up and hacking at it had gained him one sliced-off dragon wingtip and a nasty acid burn on one cheek from the dragon's blood. The only consolation was that Spike hadn't succeeded either. 

Fighting a dragon had one big plus: it wasn't too particular whom it burned to a crisp in its frenzy. There it was, soaring by overhead, trying vainly to find a place in the narrow alley to land. So far, the height of the surrounding buildings had saved them from the worst of the flames, but the thunder of descending wings gave warning that Puff had changed its tactics. Angel might have known that sooner or later, the dragon would get smart enough to kneel down and breathe through the alley, using it like a bellows. Next it'd be rolling through like a stunt plane, and they'd go up like Jackie Paper. 

"RUN!" he bellowed, and took off as the mouth of the alley exploded into a supernova of jaundiced steam. Jets of hissing vapor boiled down the funnel of brick and mortar with the roar of twenty train engines. Angel skidded out into the street at the opposite end of the alley, beheading the random attackers unlucky enough to stand in his way, and dove out of the path of the steam cannon. "Spike!" Angel shouted, and again, louder: "Spike!" 

"No need to scream like a girl, Peaches," Spike said right by his ear. Angel nearly beheaded him by reflex. Spike clicked his tongue. "Think it's a girl dragon? Do Eddie Murphy." 

Illyria emerged from the sulfuric sauna of the alley. Steam curled from her armored skin and cobalt hair. In her arms, she carried the slumped and bloody form of Charles Gunn, his lolling head cradled against her elbow. 

"Aw, Charlie . . ." Spike murmured. "Poor sod's been steamed like broccoli." 

Illyria's gaze glanced off Spike like a slap. "Charles Gunn yet lives, vampire. I shielded him with my body." 

Shouts reverberated from the far end of the alley. The enemy was rallying for a fresh assault. "We've got to get inside the Hyperion," Angel snarled. "It takes twelve minutes and sixteen seconds for that thing to re-charge after a blast. I've been timing it. We've got eight minutes left." 

He charged back into the alley. Ten feet in, he whirled and kicked at the tattered posters plastering the plywood sheeting nailed over the boarded-up delivery entrance of the Hyperion. Dixie Chicks and Dead Kennedys caved in, and Angel stepped into the hole. 

"I thought we were going after the bleeding dragon!" Spike complained. 

"Shut up and follow me." 

Spike moved aside to let Illyria pass with Gunn, and swung around immediately to stand rearguard in the gap. The steam was clearing, and a double column of demons was lumbering towards the loading dock. Time to make like Leonidas. The first one loomed out of the thinning acid fog, a solid well-fed specimen, exactly as ordered, and Spike ran him through with relish. He jumped back, twisting his sword free, and left the body jammed into the narrow entrance. Since even the dimmest demons were generally smart enough to kick in plywood, the makeshift barrier wouldn't last long. He turned and ran after his mates. Angel looked like the man with a plan, and there was no choice except to follow him. 

The bedraggled little group burst into the lobby of the Hyperion, curiously silent and dry after the cacophony outside. In the middle of the lobby, an ominous-looking pentagram glowed on the dimly lit floor, crackling with purple energy. In the center of the pentagram lay a tacky piece of jewelry, glinting with fake modesty. Angel jumped into the pentagram and waved them on. "Over here, hurry!" 

Illyria circled the pentagram and picked a particular intersection of lines to step over. She nodded to Angel. "A good leader always has a fall-back position. I laud your foresight, vampire." 

Spike skidded to a halt. "Angel, have you completely lost it? That's the sodding amulet that burned me up! You want the whole of LA to slide into a pit, you glaring idiot?" 

"You want to argue, or you want to live?" 

Spike hesitated and looked over his shoulder. The yelling and cursing of the Senior Partners' welcoming committee was getting louder. "Bloody hell," he said, and sprang. 

Angel raked open his own flesh with his sword and held his dripping hand over the amulet. The first bright scarlet drop of blood touched metal. The world tore open, and swallowed them all. 

  
  
  


## Act One

_Contentment, joy, happiness?all precursors to tragedy. That was simply a fact of his existence. So the joyous, floating sense of freedom he felt lasted only as long as the fraction of a second it took to identify it. Dust covered him, thick and downy soft, a blanket for his corpse?and others. He opened his eyes and dust fell away, fell into his eyes. Stung, burned, but he didn't blink. No one was breathing, not even the one who actually had to breathe. Not dead though. If he moved, if he sighed, the spell would be broken. And what would they be then? What would he be?_

In stories, only a princess awakened to the sight of her true love. A prince awakened to the monster in his own reflection. 

Angel closed his eyes. 

*

Spike heard someone whimpering, and came to with a start. It was him, of course. Any hope that no one had heard was lost in the creepy, crawly feeling that he was being watched. Intently. Unrelentingly. 

The god-king's carapace armor and comic book hair were covered in a thick layer of dust. Her eyes were like Superman's, shooting out concentrated x-rays to illuminate the squirming, naked soul beneath his underpants. Not that he was wearing any. Fuck it, it was a sodding analogy! Couldn't a man have a poetical moment without sodding logic getting in the way all the bleeding time? 

"Stop it," he demanded. His voice came out a dry croak. Illyria continued to stare without acknowledging him. 

Debris fell away from him as he sat up, and so did much of his jacket. He raised an arm and watched in horror as the leather fell away in papery strips. A more horrifying thought struck him. Oh god, not the cigarettes. NO! No, no, no. He scrabbled at the breast pocket in panic. The leather disintegrated, leaving a greasy residue on his palms. Goddamn dragons. He supposed he was lucky to have any clothes left at all. Or skin, for that matter. D?j? fucking vu. No, wait. This was an actual memory, wasn't it? Of another awakening, in a different but equally devastating sort of wreckage. He was pretty certain he'd awakened sated and cheerful and happy that time. Even if everything that came after was?

He struggled to his feet, his muscles stiffer and more uncooperative than they had any right to be. As if he'd been in a long coma instead of passed out from a bit of wonky magic. But the blood on his clothes was still damp. He pressed a hand to his lower back and suppressed another whimper. Wouldn't do for her Imperial Highness to hear him blubbering like a big girl's blouse?

Funny. Her eyes weren't tracking him at all. He waved his hand in her face. Not a wink. Not a shiver. Couldn't help but grin as he snapped his fingers in rapid succession before her staring eyes. 

"At my mercy now aren't you, Blue? Yeah, that's right. Who's the all-powerful god-king now, eh?" 

She blinked. "Cease, or I will tear each finger from your hands, and then remove your hands slowly, using teeth ripped out of your own jaw." 

Spike sighed happily, then shrugged. "Well, nothing trumps a surgical saw in my experience." 

She swiveled from the waist like a doll. "The human's heart has started beating again." 

Shit. Somewhere beneath the bricks and timber?a brave little toaster of a heartbeat. A little engine that could. Charles Gunn. 

Spike waded through chunks of plaster toward the sound, raising clouds of thick choking dust. In the center of the room a huge beam listed to the side, puncturing the marble floor and barely kissing the wall over the reception desk. At his approach, it creaked and groaned and kissed the wall a little bit harder. He squatted down with some difficulty to peer through a narrow crevice. There was Gunn, safely dying in a little cocoon beneath an overturned chair, a chasm in the floor a few inches from his body. If he rolled over, down he'd go. 

"Don't move, Charlie-boy," Spike whispered. "Just hold on." 

He began to shift debris away from the beam uncertainly, pondering the wisdom of trying to move it. It seemed to be partially propping the floor from underneath. Clearly, it presented the sort of logistical problem that required algebra or engineering, the solution to which had always been, in his past, to kill the necessary help. 

Fine. Blue fancied herself all-knowing. Surely she could suss out the proper procedure for moving a large beam without collapsing the surrounding structure. At least she was strong, and maybe could hold the roof above their heads while he got Gunn clear. 

"Oi, Smurfette. Help me out here, will you?" No response. "Come on! You're the mighty Illyria, ruler of the . . . whassis, commander of legions of . . . things. I'll bet you could lift this thing like a twig, with just the one hand?" 

Her eyes flicked to him, then away, and she cocked her head suddenly. Not so much bird or insect, but rather like that dog in the advert, listening to his master's voice. And wouldn't she hate that comparison? She glanced at him again, head still cocked, a little furrow forming between her brows. 

He couldn't resist. "What is it, Lassie? You trying to tell me something, girl? Granddad's trapped in a cave-in at the abandoned mine? Timmy down the well again?" 

"Angel," she said. 

And oh, Christ. There it was. That thing he'd been pretending he couldn't remember. Angel's dust was not a part of all this dust. He was as alive as he could be, and Spike was glad. Partly because it meant he didn't have to be in charge of figuring out how to move that beam. Angel liked being in charge. It was his m?tier. And Spike's raison d'?tre was giving him hell for it. 

On cue, bricks and timber on the far side of the room roiled like an angry sea, and Angel himself rose from the dust, shifting the debris and changing the landscape like a dragon under a mountain. He still had his freaking sword. No fair. Spike didn't even have his sword anymo?

Oh. Wait. There it was. He picked it up, examined it. The tip was broken, but the blade wasn't too nicked. Nothing that couldn't be fixed. He waved it at Angel. "Hey, Gramps. How was your nap?" 

Angel coughed. Uselessly brushed at the grime on his clothes. Ran fingers through the grayish powder coating his still mostly perfectly-coifed hair. Looked around and said, "Did we kill them all? Are they trapped? Are they dead?" 

***

"Whossat? You take a blow to the head?" 

Figured. If they'd woken up in Hell, the first thing he heard would be Spike complaining about the thermostat. Angel touched the back of his head. There was, in fact a lump there. His entire skull felt lumpy and bruised. "Probably." 

He looked at Spike, who looked back, suspicion and concern clearly doing battle in his tiny brain. Best to nip both in the bud. "Bring me up to speed. What's the situation?" 

Spike made a casual sweeping gesture. "Pretty much as you see it. Gunn's still breathing?barely, but I haven't been able to get to him." He pointed his chin at the beam piercing the floor by way of an explanation, then jerked his head toward Illyria. "And Her Majesty hasn't budged from that spot since I woke up, which was, oh, about five minutes ago. Not been outside yet. Could be on the Planet of the Apes for all I know." 

"We were in stasis, Spike, not a spaceship." Angel headed towards the fallen support beam. "Anyway, we both know there are things a lot worse than a bunch of chimps on horses." 

"Yeah. Chimps riding horses would be kind of refreshing, actually." 

Angel tensed, waited for the questions he would have to put off answering. Mostly, he wasn't all that clear on the spell himself, and too tired to argue about making unilateral decisions. Success or failure. A little of both. Just needed some time to put it into perspective, is all. Besides, there were priorities that needed attending to first. 

Thankfully, Spike said nothing, and there was no greater gift Spike could give than keeping his mouth shut. 

Angel knelt down where the support beam met the floor, and squinted through the swirl of dust and shadow. He could hear the slow beating of Gunn's heart. The smell of blood was so intense in the enclosed space that his body betrayed him, salivating, fangs aching to descend. "I see him. Jay-sus. That's a hell of a big hole he's lying next to." 

Leaning down next to him, Spike said, "Yes, it is. Figured I'd just crawl in and pull him out at first, but couldn't tell how wide it is. Thought maybe I'd need to shift the pillar?" 

"Floor's not stable enough. See?" Angel pointed at a buckle of marble, and the jumble of broken wood flooring like crooked teeth. "We're gonna have to go around, get to him from the other side." 

Somewhere, an evil puppet master decided to pull Gunn's strings. He stirred and moaned. 

"What? Through the wall?" 

"Got a better idea?" 

Spike straightened, blew out a noisy sigh. "All right. But after we get Charlie to hospital, you and I are gonna have a talk about this stasis business?" 

A sudden hum twanged the air, followed by a streak of blood red and blue lightning. Spike went flying, knocked clear. He wasn't the target. Angel had no time to deflect the impact. He simply reached out and grabbed hold. Illyria struggled and roared in his embrace, arms pinned to her sides, the blue in her hair, her eyes, her face, lit up like neon. Grappling, they fell through to the floor below. 

"Goddamn it, Blue!" Spike yelled from up top. A cloud of dust puffed up through the new hole in the floor. Angel could hear him coughing. 

He looked at Illyria, getting to her feet, her fists already balled and an outraged expression on her now very dirty face. His sword was on the floor, closer to her than to him, but she didn't seem to notice. The sharp angle of her shoulder blades beneath the body armor and the diffuse light streaming down made her look like a cross between a praying mantis and prepubescent girl?both extremely pissed off. 

"You dare," she growled. "You dare do that to ME!" 

Angel raised his arms, and took two careful steps back. He kept his voice low and calm. "What is it you think I've done?" 

"You have violated me, you foul, stinking half-breed." 

A beat, then Spike's voice from above. "Naughty Angelus. Did you get up to play whilst the rest of us were having our naps?" 

"I'm pretty sure she doesn't mean that." 

"What did you mean, Bluebell? How has the nasty vampire violated you? Tell Uncle Spike." 

She shot a gaze upwards and bits of plaster dribbled down as Spike scrambled back. "Do not mock me, half-breed. Be grateful your mind is so tiny that you are incapable of comprehending the horror." She returned her gaze to Angel. "You sent me back to the Deeper Well. You thought to contain me again. I was bound, imprisoned in the sarcophagus, yet still trapped within this shell. I cried out and beat these fists against the stone. But my voice was too small to gain notice from the Old Ones. Then there was . . . " She looked down, then away, staring into the middle distance. "There was . . . another voice. It called to me. And a repetitive clicking sound?" 

"Oh bloody hell," Spike muttered. "That was me. Don't you remember?" 

"You were dreaming," Angel said gently. "It was a nightmare." 

"You lie! I do not suffer nightmares. I cause them." 

A surge of hostility shot up Angel's spine and out the top of his head. "Yes! You sure as hell got that right. But sooner or later you're going to have to face a few facts, honey. _You_ are _not_ a god. Not now, not in the future. Not _ever_. Never again. That's the price you pay for killing Fred. So do yourself a favor, all right? Hunker down in that comfy shell you so ruthlessly appropriated, and get the fuck used to being there." 

Her eyes, unblinking, stayed fixed on him for a moment just past uncomfortable?when a person has time to think he might live to regret something right before it bites him on the ass. She blinked, and he relaxed fractionally, only to tense up when her gaze flicked to some point over his shoulder. He spun in time to see Gunn's body slow-motion roll through the big chasm he'd made note of only minutes earlier. 

Somehow, though she'd been farther away, Illyria managed to be a step ahead of him?enough to catch Gunn three feet before he hit the floor, rather than two. 

"Thanks," he said, not quite managing to keep the grudge out of his voice. 

She said nothing. Perhaps taking his advice to heart. Perhaps plotting his prolonged dismemberment. He reached for Gunn and she stepped back? 

There was a scrabbling sound above them, and an ominous groan. 

"I think it's time Elvis left the building!" Spike shouted down at them. 

With Gunn in her arms, Illyria flexed her knees and leapt straight up through the hole she and Angel had crashed through. Angel scooped up his sword and followed suit, somersaulting into a run towards the door. In seconds they were out in the courtyard. It was still dark. By the feel of it, not much of the night had passed since they'd stepped into the pentagram. Spike was half-way up the pole of a shattered streetlight, staring out into the darkness, nostrils flaring. "Hold on. Wanna know what kind of a spell that was." 

"Do we really have time for this? The nearest hospital's City of Hope, down on 8th Street. We need to get Gunn there and make sure Illyria doesn't frighten old ladies or kill their pets." 

Spike dropped lithely to the ground. "See, you're doing that cagey thing with your eyes, now, makes me all kinds of suspicious?" 

Angel heaved a sigh. "Spell. To open a vortex into a pocket dimension. Any demons that followed us - which would be pretty much all of them?got sucked into the vortex. That's what the guy told me anyway. The guy I got it from. The sorcerer. He's, uh, he's dead. Kinda had to?" He made a slicing gesture across his throat. 

"Ri-ight. And what was supposed to happen to us then?" 

"We'd be in, like, suspended animation. Stasis." 

"In the amulet?" 

"Yup. That was the plan." 

Spike seemed to be considering. He actually stroked his chin. "Pretty good plan." 

"I didn't have a lot of time for fine tuning?" 

"Clearly. How were we supposed to get out? Of stasis?" 

"Ideally? Uh, when the vortex closed, the pentagram would disappear and, you know, ta-da." 

"I didn't see any sign of the pentagram. Or the amulet." 

"Neither did I." 

"Think it did the trick?" 

"No," Angel said, noting for the first time what his senses had been tracking since he woke beneath the rubble. "It did _a_ trick." 

***

Spike knew the smell of trouble. He'd caused enough of it in his day. Smoke, old blood, hot metal and a whiff of petrol. It was underfoot, smeared brown on the pavement like burned-rubber stains. It hung overhead like smog?which wasn't on the breeze. The big-city smell was gone, and the light of the stars blazed down on Los Angeles, as if the city had been empty for days, months, years. Every streetlight was out, both up and down the street. L.A. had become Dark City. Or no, more like Night-Light City. Spike spotted flickering glows on the skyline, beyond the looming buildings of the inner city. Fires, most likely. Aftermath of apocalypse. 

Typical. Angel's plan might have put Sun Tzu to shame, but they all should have known by now that master plans got bollocksed with the surety of death and taxes?surer. Spike had died twice and he'd got over it, and he hadn't paid taxes since the nineteenth century, but he'd never yet met a plan that hadn't gone wrong somehow. Decades could have ticked away while they played Rip Van Winkle, shut up in sodding Pandora's box . . . if he'd lost high score on the Asteroids game at Dominici's, it was all the old man's bloody fault. 

He sniffed again, smelled human meat, scorched meat. Game face settled over him and his fangs dropped. He shook his head hard, banishing it. 

Angel had moved ahead, coat swinging around his broad-shouldered frame. He glanced back over his shoulder, and his face was gone all lion-like: jag-teeth and lumpies, eyes flashing yellow, nose wrinkled in a snarl. "Lots of bodies," he called back, "but nothing moving. And no dragons, knock on wood." 

"Don't mention wood, all right? The one thing that hasn't come at us tonight." 

"Hurry up, then," Angel said. 

"We are not," Illyria started, "obliged to take your orders, vampire . . ." 

Angel wasn't listening. Spike broke into a trot to catch up with his grandsire, hefting his sword. They made their way cautiously through the maze of ruined streets, meeting nobody. Nobody alive, anyway. Lots more signs of battle, though. Spike spotted scars from what looked like machine-gun fire, strafe-marks along the foundations of buildings. And not recent, either. Just how long had they been trapped in that sodding amulet? 

And no lack of corpses to trip over. All heaped in the street, in knots and tumbles. Human bodies, demons of races Spike had never seen or heard tell of. Things with great trifold antlers like racks of swords. Things that had rotted away to heaps of splotched mossy stones. Downed, dead flyers, whose spindly legs projected in chitin tubes, each jointed ten times or more, and whose gossamer wings trailed like gauze from the black jumbles of their exoskeletons. And filling an entire alley, a dragon whose throat had been opened in a slice ten feet long. Human skulls by the dozens had spilled out of its crop, polished like yellowing pearls. Bloody two of everything dead, Noah's Ark by way of Resident Evil. He found himself slipping back into game face. Spike caught up with Angel, passed him. Angel?who'd never slipped out of game face?snarled wordlessly at him, shoved him almost off his feet, took the lead again. Spike's growl vibrated deep in his chest. 

"Watch it!" 

"Wait. Do you hear??" 

Both of them spun, raising their swords. They were opposite a series of storefronts, shabby run-down strip malls that had seen better days even before being tromped on by giants and dragons. Now they were so trashed it was hard to tell if they'd ever even had merchandise. All the display windows had been broken, and the stores themselves looked to have been looted. Something clattered behind the jagged-edged plate glass of the closest store. Back in the deeper darkness to the rear of the store, something moved. A trio of silhouettes moved ponderously toward the street. They jostled, horned heads inclining together, jaws champing. Illyria set Gunn down, beginning to smile. 

Spike whispered, "R'ych?" 

Angel nodded. He was smiling too, with bared fangs. Spike shoved ahead of him, grinning at the prospects. Slaughter on the breeze made him feel crazy-ready for a spot of violence. He'd heard that discretion was the better part of valor, but he'd never really believed it. 

The first of the R'ych lumbered onto the street, climbing straight through the broken storefront?likely it hadn't the brain cells to understand doors. The other two collided on their way through, pushed and wrestled with an outburst of grunts and curses. When they separated and shouldered their way out of the shop, they brought most of the window-frame along with them, in pieces. One clutched a well-ripened trophy?a rotting human arm, was it??and shreds of hair and ripped cloth hung from the other's jaws. R'ych. Not hell's most delicate eaters. This lot probably thought they'd been right stealthy, laying low like that. 

Spike took a running leap and hit the first one with sword and teeth and boots and knuckles. He thrust the sword straight through it at chest height, used the leverage to swarm up the R'ych and get at its ugly face, getting in a few shrewd kicks as he went. Swords through the heart didn't kill R'ych. Not unless they were silver swords, anyway. Not that Spike cared. Taking out the spinal cord through the jugular was what did it. Its blood was godawful stuff, fit only to spit out in a gutter. It was toppling. Damn. Dead practically before the fun had started. Damn. 

He gave it a final kick and swung away with a wordless yell of frustration, looking for the others. Both dead, the creampuffs. Angel had nabbed 'em both, and the King in Blue, looking vexed, was now stalking toward the wrecked display window of the shop as if she hoped to find a few more lurking behind the cash register. Definitely displeased at being shortchanged on the fighting and relegated to hospital-orderly detail. Spike could sympathize. Hadn't Angel hogged the lion's share of the R'ych? Greedy git. He'd run them over like a freight train, though?had to respect that kind of bloodthirstiness. 

Angel was addressing Illyria, "R'ych are like Fyarl, demon foot-soldiers. Cannon fodder. But there weren't any of them with the Black Thorn army . . . So where did these come from?" 

Spike shrugged. "There's this brilliant concept called 'reinforcements.' Maybe you've heard of it?" He gazed pointedly around at the deserted street. "Suppose not. Better question might be, how long exactly were we stuck in that magic teaball?" 

"It's still springtime. That's something." Angel pointed into the starry sky. "See Orion? I'd say it hasn't been longer than a month, tops." 

"Or thirteen months," Spike said. "Or thirteen years?" 

The earth shook. It thrummed under Spike's feet, and westwards towards the harbor, something whumped?BOOM BOOM BOOM. A huge formless darkness rippled against the horizon, then rose above it. The buildings were dwarfed by the shadowy shape hanging endlessly against the dim star-filled gulf of the sky. It fell back out of sight. Moments later, the sound followed, like great waves crashing down. 

"Back!" Angel shoved them towards the shelter of an overturned trash bin. 

Curling a cerulean lip at the enforced dumpster-dive, Illyria removed a limp, slimy rind of something best left unidentified from her carapace. "Hiding in garbage receptacles does not become my dignity?" 

Spike shushed her. Gunn hung from her arms like a disjointed doll. He was dead weight, and the fresh-blood smell from him was fit to raise the dead, damned dangerous with hunting demons in the vicinity. 

"I heard Sebassis had a kraken, but I didn't want to believe it," Angel muttered. "Uh, did anyone think to count the seconds between when we saw it and when the sound wave arrived?" 

No one had. They waited. One of them breathed. Lights flickered on the horizon. At last the tremors faded to a residual shudder, and the vampires crawled out to reconnoiter. Angel looked up, "If the moon was out, we could see what phase it's in. That'd tell us how long we were in the box." 

"Yeah, right, Mr. Sierra Club. Too bad about the wall-to-wall cloud cover," Spike jeered. "And knowing the time of month wouldn't tell us the year, now would it? I bet it's been centuries." 

"Spike? When did we go from counting the stars to solid cloud cover overhead?" 

Spike bared his teeth. "Don't think that's cloud cover." A chill went over his skin, his hackles went up. He stood gazing into the night, suddenly doubtful those were clouds moving overhead. More kraken? Dragons, flying? Or something bigger even than that? He moved to close ranks, instinctively. Angel shot him a disgruntled glance and sidled closer. They stood shoulder to shoulder, companionable, like old days come again. 

***

Newly risen Lady Moon looked down on the pock-marked visage of the world with disfavor. Illyria strode behind the vampires, regarding them with equal disfavor as they scurried from shadow to shadow, from ruin to ruin. Against her body she cradled the still-living man, Charles Gunn. So fragile a creature, even more so than the vampires. The beat of its heart so faint, the warmth of its skin against hers so feeble. 

Why not thrust it away from her? Logic dictated that she should. To touch it sullied her flesh; to care for it sullied her very thoughts. Why exactly had she rescued Gunn from the Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart? To buy Angel's obligation, as she'd claimed? When Angel had clearly abandoned Gunn to his fate, and set no further value by him? But the shell . . . the shell had mated with this creature once, and she herself had said it was not unpleasant to her eyes. 

Insufficient. The only one she truly wished to carry this way was dead, dead and gone. No longer was it in her power to bestow life. She could only take it, and this grieved her sorely. A true king must wreak destruction, yes, but also bring forth new life. Even in this shell, before she was diminished, she had been able to alter the song of the leafy brothers and sisters, but now the green spoke to her no more. Once she had transformed realities merely by traveling through them?but now, this world was silent, and ignored her passage. 

The shell ached in the strangest places for the presence of Wesley. Inside, between the breastbone and spine the shell had used to hold its many soft and squishy parts together, instead of sensibly using external armor. The paltry sensory organs ached, especially the visual ones. The five-fingered paws recalled the feel of his hair against their skin. Her mouth wished to pucker and press his. As he died she had fished a notion out of the shell's scattered memories and muttered nonsense about a world where she would meet him again. His reaction still puzzled her. She knew of creatures who could exist as pure energy, but she hadn't ranked humanity among them. 

She bared her teeth grimly, wondering if the vampires had retained enough of ancient demoniac powers to sense the advent of the dawn, but her question was immediately answered by a change in their pattern of movement. They went more slowly, questing among the ruined buildings for shelter. Angel threw his head back, scenting the wind before a ruined warehouse frozen in its death throes, girders flung out in a last plea for mercy. 

"Spike! I smell fresh water. This way." 

Everything about Angel irked her. His assumptions of equality, the way he presumed to issue orders to her minions. Hadn't Wesley been named her Guide? Hadn't Spike been named her Pet? And yet he acted as if they had not been given into her care at all. Irksome and confusing. As was the rest of this troublesome world, where the old boundaries were trodden down by disrespectful feet and the old rules discounted. She, Illyria, god-king of the Primordium, was by no means spent, if that's what Angel surmised. 

Spike eyed the slimy trickle of greenish water flowing through the rubble and down the deserted street. "Not exactly Perrier, is it? As like to kill Charlie off proper as soothe his fevered brow." 

"You want to show me the clear artesian spring you've found? Come on. We can break that pipe loose?"

A faint movement on the vermeil-tinged horizon piqued her attention. Was it illusion, or had there been a vast shape visible for a moment against the pinkening sky? Illyria forgot all about the vampires scrabbling in the dirt like the primitives they were and the dying man in her arms. She extended what paltry senses she had left into the distance all around her, before, behind and above her. Along the edges of her perception there were half-glimpsed movements, immense but unidentifiable sounds, vast but elusive scents that set her nose twitching. They stirred memories both recent and immeasurably distant. She halted, a wild bubble of emotion blossoming within, almost, almost filling the gap Wesley's departure had left. She knew. She knew what had done this, what force Angel had unwittingly unleashed. 

"Blue!" Spike shouted, rudely destroying her concentration. "Get Charlie in here!" 

Illyria opened her mouth to chastise him for disturbing her ruminations, but then she realized he'd acted as responsibly as he could within his limitations, thinking to warn his king of coming dangers. He did not know what moved in the night, not yet. When the time was right, she would inform him. He was a good and loyal pet. He knew to whom he owed allegiance, if this Angel creature didn't. 

She inclined her head graciously in the minimal recognition his actions merited. After a last look at the empty roseate sky she followed Spike and Angel into the contorted ruin of a building they had chosen. 

***

The first thing he noticed wasn't the pain. That came half a beat later. The first thing he noticed was Spike, shouting at Angel. Then the pain burst through him, and Charles Gunn gasped. 

It felt like that thing from "Alien" was trying to claw its way out of his chest. The broken ribs?and it felt like every single one of them was broken?stabbed with every movement, and he heard a rattle when he breathed. The gash in his side where the Senator's hench-vamp had gotten him with his own stake throbbed, and the collarbone, broken by a demon's fist, made him see stars. His fingers clenched in the oily rags he lay on, and he concentrated on finding Spike's voice through the shrill buzz of the pain. The effort left him dizzy and sweating. 

He lifted his head, only for a second, to see what was going on, even though it felt like someone had set off about a pound of C4 inside his skull. They were inside some kind of abandoned warehouse?of course they were. Illyria was squatting on the top of a forklift, silhouetted against the windows in the first glow of day. She seemed to be paying no attention at all to the vampires, who were squared off between her and Gunn, their hunting faces on. 

". . .what the _fucking hell_ were you thinking, you daft bogtrotter?" Spike was shouting, obviously not thinking about anyone hearing them, which, from the distant sounds of yelling and gunfire?not to mention noises that probably came from very large demons?was not a good idea. Gunn expected Angel to slap Spike down about it. Instead, Angel shook off his demon, got right up in Spike's face, and shouted back at him. 

"I was thinking we wouldn't all be dead!" 

Was that the faint hint of a brogue in Angel's voice? Yes, it was. 

"Oh, fine, we'll be alive," Spike snarled, "but what about the rest of the world?" 

Gunn took a breath, felt bubbling as he exhaled. "Shit," he muttered, and tried to push himself upright. A warm trickle down his side and on the back of his left thigh told him his wounds were bleeding again, and when he tried to push with his right arm, phosphorus flares exploded behind his eyes. He swore silently through gritted teeth, but kept pushing, because he knew that bubbling meant fluid in his lungs. When he finally got himself propped up against a piece of fallen wall, he was shaking and breathing in shallow, rapid pants. He cradled his arm against his chest, put his head back and tried to relax his muscles, hoping it would lessen the pain, but it didn't. The phosphorus flares only settled into his chest. 

"I didn't know it would be like this . . . " Angel wasn't shouting any more, but the evenness of his tone made Gunn's neck prickle. 

"Because you didn't think things through, as usual," Spike snarled. 

"Oh, that's rich, coming from Mr. I'm-so-bored-I-can't-follow-a-plan!" 

The two of them stepped closer to each other, fangs bared and fists cocked back. They were flickering in and out of game face now, the changes melting over them, and snarling at each other, low sounds in the backs of their throats, and Gunn thought they were finally going to throw down? 

Before either one of them could throw a punch, Illyria leaped gracefully down from her perch. "Cease this fruitless arguing," she said, and her eyes flashed blue fire. The snarling vampires, startled, stepped back, and Gunn was surprised to see them both in human face. What the hell? It was like they didn't even know they were changing. "It is pointless to discuss this any further. We are here, the world is as it is, and you are wasting time." 

She glared at them. Spike had the grace to rub his neck and look chagrined. Angel lifted both hands and took a step backward. "You're right," he said. "But Captain Selfish here is . . . " 

" _Hey!_ " Spike's face shifted, and he was in vamp mode again. 

Gunn closed his eyes, letting their voices fade into the buzz. All the fights they'd been in, all the apocalypses they'd averted, all the demons they'd fought, all the injuries they'd sustained?it was a wonder he wasn't dead fifty times over. But it was getting harder and harder to breathe, and he knew that his luck had just about run out. The thought didn't disturb him as much as he'd expected. 

Ain't that a hell of a thing? he thought. If we ever get done with this apocalypse and I'm still alive, I'm getting out of the superhero biz. Leave the apocalypse-averting to the ones with the superpowers. There was plenty of stuff for the regular non-super folk to do, if they were willing to turn their hands to it. Maybe not enough of those kind. They could use one more. 

"Keep loading the truck," he whispered. Anne had been right about that; even if you knew it wasn't going to save the day, you still helped those who needed it. 

Besides, I ain't as young as I used to be. The irony of that surprised a laugh out of him, which turned into a groan. 

Illyria, listening to the argument, turned, and Gunn could have sworn that she could actually see him in the half light. Hell, maybe she could; she was a god, after all. She shot a contemptuous glance at the two vampires and walked over to crouch next to Gunn. For a split second her face was blank, as though she were remembering something, or listening to someone Gunn couldn't see. 

"It is customary to offer water," she said, in that cold, distant voice that was so unlike Fred's. "But I have no water." 

"'S okay," Gunn said. "Damn, this hurts." 

"You will be dead soon, and the pain will cease." 

Gunn bit off a laugh as the broken ends of his ribs ground together. "Don't sugar-coat it, Blue, just give it to me straight." 

Illyria cocked her head, and did that listening thing again. "This is humor, is it not?" 

Gunn coughed again. "Yeah, it is." 

"If you are capable of making jokes, perhaps you are in better condition than I thought." Illyria's face didn't move, but there was something about her, the way she held her head, maybe, or the set of her shoulders, that told Gunn she was no longer paying attention to him or to the still-arguing vampires. She was focused on something only she could hear?something outside the room. Whatever it was, it was making her sad. As much as a god-king could be sad. She straightened and stood, head cocked to one side in a way that reminded Gunn of Spike, and then turned away. 

"Wait," he said. She glanced over her shoulder at him. "What in the hell is going on with those two?" Gunn lifted his chin toward the vampires. "They've vamped out, like . . ." 

Without warning, Illyria stiffened and her eyes went wide. Through the window, a shadow blotted out the newly risen sun, and a sound like the grinding gears of some huge machine bellowed around them. Illyria looked up, and Gunn, curious, did likewise. It made his head spin, and the phosphorus flares in his chest expanded to fill up his whole body. He was relieved to see that Angel and Spike had stopped arguing to see what was causing the eclipse. 

It came from the direction of the Los Angeles river, stilting over the tall buildings of L.A. In an eyeblink, it filled half the sky. The bulk of its body was a hellish seething of tentacles, surrounding a mouth big enough to swallow a building in one bite. It roared, and its breath sent dust-devils spinning across the deserted rooftops. A rippling curve tentacle lifted skyward, passing over the warehouse with its end curling restlessly. Were there eyes on that fucker? Close enough that Gunn could have leaped up and touched it?if he'd been completely whacked, that was. Another tentacle sailed overhead, descended. The building rocked. 

An answering roar reverberated from the east. Through the bank of shattered windows on the far wall a second creature came into view, till in a collision of countless tentacles it smashed into the firstcomer. The pair climbed each other, tentacles grappling, sliding, coiling and knotting together. One was black, its tentacles thorned with countless diamonds, the world's biggest pit-bull collar in shiny leather and steel studs. One rippled all over with rainbows of iridescent scales. They changed shapes as they surged over each other, sprouting blades the size of airplane wings?silhouetted blades weaving from the loops of immense tentacles, clashing against each other, carving chunks out of the clouds. Taking bites out of each other?a splatter of thick ichor fell, painted the side of a building with the world's biggest pigeon booger. First fighting, then entwining with a massive wet slither. And the sucking sounds? Impressive. Gunn realized what they were doing, and gaped. He couldn't tear his eyes off them. 

"What the hell is _that_?" He looked over at Illyria, who was staring up at the monstrosities mating in the sky with what Gunn could only call hope. 

" _That_ is the reason the half-breeds cannot maintain one state," she said, never taking her eyes off the tentacled behemoths. "It is in their nature, and they are part of it, although thousands of generations removed. It calls to their blood, wakes the part of them that is kin, strengthens it, makes it restive, makes it hungry." 

Illyria finally looked down at Gunn, and her smile was terrible. "This is what I was before I was confined to this pitiful shell. These are Old Ones. I have found my own again." 

"Oh, shit," Gunn said. "That can't be good." Before he thought, he twisted, bracing on his right arm as he tried to stand up, to let Angel know what they were dealing with. 

The pain blazed white-hot, and the darkness that followed it was a mercy. 

  
  
  


## Act Two

Spike lounged in the shadow of the warehouse's fire escape, trying to ignore his complaining belly, and pondered. Not his thing, pondering, but sometimes a bloke was trapped by circumstance. 

He knew about the Old Ones, of course; every properly-brought-up demon was educated in the history of the pre-human world. They'd ruled for millennia, right, before history began. According to the Watchers, they'd been driven forth, into other dimensions, exiled from the earth. According to the age-old traditions of vampires, they had swanned off to more promising real estate somewhere, but one day they'd be back, to reclaim the world, and then true believers would be rewarded, yea verily, and lowly vamps would be exalted above all other creatures of hell. Yeah. 

According to the Master they would, and Aurelians would be their trusted right hands. 

Aurelians would be swallowed in one bite, more like. Things like that? No vamp had common interests with them. Hard enough making common cause with Illyria herself, and she was a bloody sight more approachable now than she'd been new-hatched. Positively dripping with the milk of human kindness, compared to what she'd been. They had Wes to thank for that. In bringing them Illyria as an ally, he'd given them someone on their side with the scoop on the Godzilloids. The blue bint was gonna be worth her weight in Microsoft stock options. 

"Charles Gunn bleeds again." 

That was Illyria herself, standing in the doorway of their impromptu lair. Spike followed her back inside. She crouched over Gunn, and laid a hand flat on the unconscious man's chest, lifted it with the palm all red and bloody. 

"Observe," she said, holding her hand up for Spike and Angel to see. "He leaks." Angel was moving toward her. "It is for you to care for him," Illyria accused. "You called yourself his leader." 

Spike's lips drew back from his fangs. The blood reek filled his nose and jabbed straight into his gut, breathing hunger. Blood was dripping down Illyria's wrist now, a thin rivulet running almost to her elbow - blood wet between her fingers, and the smell coming from it, from Gunn? Irresistible. Spike put himself between Gunn and Angel, facing Angel with a snarl. Angel was heading toward the food, and it was Spike's and nobody else's. His whole body was parched, yearning for nourishment, the demand throbbing from his head to his toes through his empty, clenching stomach, and oh yeah, nothing was gonna get between him and the hot, fragrant, pulsing blood. Bloodbloodblood. Better than otter. Sodding nectar, it was. And it was Spike's, all Spike's ?

Spike gave way, shaken. He shook his head hard and repeatedly, banishing the fangs. The effort left him dizzy. For god's sake, he'd been that close to drinking from Charlie like Gunn was his own personal sippy cup. He thrust a hand towards Angel's chest. Angel stumbled back, hastily shuffled his human face back into place. 

"Oh, god," Angel seemed as aghast as Spike was. "It happened again, didn't it?" His game face flickered over the human mask of his everyday features, but he seemed unaware of it. Spike checked his own face unobtrusively. Hah. He had more control over it than Angel, he knew it. Always had, always would. 

Illyria nodded, unconcerned. "As rivers run into the jaws of the sea, as the moon's mouth yawns every month, so do your demon halves wax towards fullness when an Old One's presence calls. Worship the true source of your divine darkness, half-breeds, for my ilk shall always call it forth." 

"Ye-ah," Angel said, talking right over her, "anyway, if we know they've got this effect on us, we can resist it. And we're going to have to, because Gunn's sinking fast. We need to go out, get some antibiotics for him." 

"Sun's high," Spike said. 

"Yes, well, I'd send Illyria by herself," said Angel with a great deal of sarcasm, "but?"

"Point taken." 

"I will stay at Charles Gunn's side," said Illyria, with a certain natural grandeur. "To defend him, and give him solace. Fear not. In his final hours, he will not be abandoned by all his battle-comrades." 

Clouds were starting to gather by the time they left the warehouse, a storm rolling in off the Pacific and making the shadow-to-shadow dash a hair less perilous. They'd tried the sewers, but one encounter with a tentacle large enough to fill the whole water main killed that idea. Now that Spike knew what to look for, he half-expected the footprints of Old Ones sunk in the city streets, broad enough for fucking swimming pools. High-rises with teeth marks on 'em. 

Five blocks from the intersection of Wilshire and the 110, the vampires froze instinctively against the side of a building, looking down the windblown street. A flood of reptilian demons was passing along the raised highway. They were moving fast, crossways to the two vampires. They flowed across the overpass, a river of green and brown. Their shovel-like hands slapped the pavement, and the clatter of their long claws was like castanets, like tap-dancing. Above and behind them, a snake as big as a Mack truck poured into sight, jaws champing on a bit. Its reins were chains?Spike caught the glitter of them. Something like a pillar of serpents rode upright on the snake's back. It was segmented, armored, bejeweled, columnar, crowned with a head of weaving tentacles. It carried seven swords, which wove their own deadly patterns in the sunlight. 

He hissed into Angel's ear: "That looks like Illyria used to. Back in her Army of Doom era." Spike's fingers itched. "Looks smaller in daylight, you know. I could take it. Wonder where they're going so fast?" He eyed Angel. "No way all these demons moved in overnight. And did you notice?no newspapers blowing around the streets? I'm betting we were in the amulet at least half a century." 

As soon as the demon cadre had passed by, they ghosted down the street, crossed the intersection themselves. 

"Left here," said Angel, a few blocks on. "It's not far now." 

Two more blocks, and they were at the hospital. Miraculously, it appeared to be inhabited. And by human beings, no less. The barricades began halfway down the block: wreckage and foundation-blocks piled into a wall like the fortification of a castle, and humans in olive drab perched atop, manning what looked like machine-gun nests. Thin white smoke-ribbons rose from cook fires kindled fifty feet above the ground. Humans sat at ease up there, with beach umbrellas?the gaudy colors struck a brave note?fixed to the fortifications, serving as impromptu sun-shades. They had even draped a banner over the wreckage. The words painted across it proudly proclaimed FREE AMERICA. The humans cradled guns and crossbows. At least two of them carried long staffs embellished with animal tails and eagle feathers, the mark of shamans or sorcerers. 

"Follow my lead," Angel said. 

The big ponce. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what he'd been bloody well doing. Said he would. Kept his promises, no need to bloody well remind him of it all the bloody time. Angel probably wanted all the yummy soldiers for himself. Well, screw him. 

Wait. Got a soul now, Spike reminded himself. Don't get carried away, it was just Old Ones nearby or something . . . but crap, seemed like it was getting harder not to go under the influence. 

The soldiers had already spotted them, and a squad was clambering down the barricade. Angel held up both hands, palms conspicuously empty. Spike skulked behind him, salivating. Angel called, tentatively: "Free America!" 

Answering cheers erupted from the wall of vehicles. "Free America, and free humanity!" 

Keeping to the shady side of the street, Angel and Spike walked slowly toward the soldiers. The squad had reached ground level: five of them. They looked casual. And smelled delicious. Sure, they were a little ragged, their hair badly cut and their chins dark with stubble, but it wasn't the exterior that mattered, as every vamp knew?it was what was inside that counted, right, beauty was only skin deep but blood was the life eternal. This lot was passing what appeared to be a hand-rolled cig back and forth. Spike brightened a little. Reefer smoke. 

"Free America," Angel repeated. "We're friendly. You?" 

The humans grinned. "Ah, same old, same old. You gents from San Diego, then?" 

"Er?"

"Cause if you're the couriers from Division Headquarters, why, then c'mon in and get some hot grub. All friendly faces welcome. What happened to your transportation, then?" 

"Wreck on the interstate," Angel said. "Little incident with a big slimy monster. We've been hiking since then, left one of our own in a basement halfway across town, wounded. He couldn't travel any farther. We're hoping we can pick up some antibiotics?" They just looked blank. Angel tried again: "Uh, medical supplies?" 

"Well, surely. Didja kill the monster? We hope." The soldiers pumped fists into the air, raised another cheer. "Free America, free humanity!" 

This was going to be a doddle. Quick in, a quick smoke (Spike hoped), couple o' quick bandaids for Charlie, and quick out again. So long as no Old Ones came too near, and he and Angel could keep a lid on their demons, no harm no foul . . . 

"?so come along," one of the humans was saying already, smacking Angel on the back in an affable way, "we'll get you set up, and George here?hey, George! Quit hogging the weed!?George here will administer you your identity check, and then you can come inside and make friendly." 

"Identity check?" 

"Sure, I've got it." George, he of the marijuana joint, dug in his baggy pants and pulled out a flask. "Too bad you didn't bring any girls with you, aren't enough girls left here. I wanna settle down, have kids for the cause, you know?" He held out the flask, grinning. The reefer hung from the corner of his mouth. "Holy water. Cut with the finest potato rotgut ever to come out of a bathtub. Have a swig, and march right in." 

"I've got a better idea," said Angel. To Spike: "Sprint." 

They sprinted. 

George and his friends shouted in surprise. A stutter of gunfire came from above. Puffs of dust tracked along the pavement, chips leaped up?Spike ran faster. Flat out, vampire-fast. Their reception squad was now coming in hot pursuit, setting an impressive pace of its own. Dammit, they were firing as they ran. And two of them had crossbows. 

"Survived a whole demon army," Spike yelled, pelting away after Angel, "and you had to get me killed by humans?" 

"Shut up and run." 

A crossbow bolt plucked at Spike's sleeve, and another zinged overhead. The bastards were starting to make him mad. "Let go!" Spike yelled. "Let's go back, show those soldiers exactly which way the food chain goes?"

Angel smacked him one. He hooked his fingers into the fretwork of the manhole cover and heaved. The cover juddered and clanged in its housings. Angel yanked it open one-handed, shoved Spike at the hole. Spike half fell; Angel kicked him the rest of the way and jumped in after him. He pulled the cover back into place with a grating scrape of iron. Footsteps thundered by overhead. 

Spike slumped against the wall. "Well, this calls for a sigh of relief?"

Angel, above on the ladder, kicked him in the head. Spike shut his mouth indignantly, looked up, saw Angel jabbing his finger downward?what the hell was he pointing at, then??followed the pointing finger, and froze. The vault of the sewer tunnel below was filled with movement. R'ych. But now instead of three solitary foragers there must have been a hundred or more. 

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. The R'ych were padding swiftly down the sewer on lizard feet. Spike had a beautiful view of the tops of their horned heads bobbing as they hurried along. The goombas were dancing again. Going in the same direction as the cavalcade they'd spotted on the 110 with the snake-rider. This lot was grunting and barking to each other in the dark, fragments of uncouth speech rising: "The Destroyer. . . trapped . . . masters gather . . . wolf, ram, hart lair . . . faster! . . . faster!" 

The last of them vanished down the sewer, going?yes, going in the direction of the Wolfram  & Hart building. Above Spike, Angel stiffened. "I don't care if it has been half a century." The words came grinding out from between his clenched teeth. "We have to get to the Wolfram & Hart building, and we have to get there _now_." 

***

The metal rung under Angel's hands began to crumple. He must have made some sound; Spike clamped a hand onto his ankle, fingers digging in through the leather of his boots. 

"Thought you didn't want them to hear us," he hissed. 

Angel growled, and Spike, no fool, let go. "I don't give a flying fuck if they do," he said, but he kept his voice to the same level as Spike's. The rung began to buckle and twist, then made a tearing sound as the welded joints gave way. Angel pitched forward as the bar broke free. Spike grabbed for him and caught a fistful of his coat as he scrabbled for another hold on the ladder. 

"Are you _trying_ to make them hear you?" Angel had known Spike long enough to know there was a "you moron!" he was keeping himself from saying. 

"Shut up, Spike." Angel wasn't in the mood to hear it, even if it was only in his head. He needed to think, to figure out how to get to Wolfram  & Hart before the demons. The sound of the R'ych band?hell, that was an army?faded to the near-silence of rat-scrabble and dripping water. Angel went very still, listening, focusing on the street above them. It was quiet. 

"Come on," he said, his voice grim. "We have to get to Wolfram & Hart before they do." He hooked a leg behind the ladder and gave the manhole cover a shove with both hands, using his full strength, and it flew upward. It was several seconds before Angel heard it land, in which time Spike, of course, started bitching. 

"Are you out of your tiny sodding mind? That's the last place we need to be going, you twat, not to mention it's in the opposite fucking direction as the antibiotics!" 

Angel glared down at him, his eyes hard and implacable. "Don't, then," he said coldly, and the tone widened Spike's eyes. Angel pushed off the ladder, leaped upward, flipped in midair, and landed in a crouch on the pavement. He looked down at Spike. "You find help for Gunn. I'll be fine on my own." It was a bluff, of course; even with the boost the demon got from having the Old Ones nearby, a hundred R'ych would slow him down, maybe even stop him. He couldn't afford that. He needed Spike at his back, and the boy hadn't changed so much, even after a hundred and twenty years and obtaining a soul, that Angel didn't know exactly how to get him there. "I don't need you." 

"Bloody hell you don't!" Spike scrambled up the ladder and onto the pavement. "You planning to take on that R'ych army single-handed?" 

"If I have to," Angel said. 

He could see the struggle on Spike's face, and knew the instant he'd decided what he was going to do. Angel allowed himself a small moment of satisfaction that he could still make Spike dance to his tune. But he was careful not to let it show on his face. 

"Buffy would stake me if I let you get dusted," Spike said, heaving a melodramatic sigh, and again Angel heard what Spike wouldn't say: _I'm not losing you, too._

"Then hurry your ass up. I'm not waiting." Angel pushed to his feet and set off at a lope toward the Wolfram  & Hart building. He didn't run full out until he heard Spike's boot heels strike the pavement. He grinned fiercely to himself as he listened to Spike muttering curses under his breath the whole time it took him to catch up. 

The third time they came to a blockage they couldn't simply go over, Angel roared and began tearing at the lumber and bricks, snarling curses as he threw the wreckage behind him. He never noticed when the words became growls, or the growls roars, or when he shifted into his other face and tossed aside a ten-foot square of brick and mortar as though it were a matchbook. He never noticed the shouts coming from behind him, until Spike's fist crashed into his jaw. 

His lips pulled back over his fangs and his arm shot out, his hand closed around Spike's throat. He was squeezing so tightly that Spike could utter no sound. But that had never stopped the boy from communicating. Spike rolled his eyes? _don't need to breathe, duh_?and pointed off to Angel's left. Angel ignored it; he lifted Spike off the ground and shook him. "I'm trying to do something, here," he said, his voice deceptively calm. "I'll not stand for you getting in my way." 

Spike kicked at him. Angel would have ignored that, too, if the kicks hadn't come in the rapid three-tap sequence that they'd used in the old days when even vampire-quiet talking would have been dangerous. He shook off his game face and really looked at Spike, who merely lifted an eyebrow. 

Angel let go, and Spike landed on his feet without a bobble. 

"What the fucking hell is wrong with you?" Spike said, "Didn't you hear me?" Angel hadn't, but now he heard what Spike had been trying to draw to his attention. The humans from the hospital were about a block away and coming toward them. 

Spike grabbed Angel's sleeve. "Come on, then," he said, and gave the sleeve a jerk. 

"Keep your shirt on," Angel snapped. He looked around, but the pile of rubble he'd been trying to remove was so huge that it blocked both streets and the intersection. The only way out that didn't include the danger of catching fire from the sunlight was through an alley behind them. Angel could see wreckage blocking the alley, but the buildings provided enough shelter that they could go over it. He jerked his head toward it. 

"This way," he said, and pulled his sleeve out of Spike's grasp. 

"Do you even know where that goes?" 

"Do we have time to worry about it?" They didn't, and Spike knew it; the humans had seen them now, and raised a shout as they charged toward the two vampires. 

"There they are! All out, all out, we found them!" 

Angel spared no more words, but dashed down the alley, Spike hard at his heels until they came to the barricade of rubble. 

"We can't fight in here." Angel knew from the sound of Spike's voice that he'd been looking forward to a fight. Angel rolled his eyes?Jesus, did he need everything spelled out? 

"Neither can they." 

"Point." Spike, mercifully, didn't say anything else, which might have worried Angel in other circumstances, but he was busy examining the barrier in front of them. It didn't look any too stable. 

A distinctive _tock_ sound warned him, and he turned aside as a crossbow bolt whizzed past his face. The humans were crowding around the mouth of the alley, shoving and shouting. A tall, heavyset black man in a plaid flannel shirt stood a dozen steps in, reloading his crossbow with deliberate movements that told Angel a great deal about how much experience the man had had with the weapon. Angel grabbed Spike by the collar. 

"Up and over," he said, hauled back and threw Spike over the barrier, then leaped to the top of the pile. It shifted under his weight, but he was already airborne again. Spike was sprawled on the ground. Before Angel could tell him to get up, he struggled to his feet, shaking his head. 

"Give a body some warning, would you? Ow." Spike pulled a large shard of curved glass from his thigh. He gave it a disgusted look and dropped it, then began to pick out smaller shards from his hands. 

"Sorry," Angel said, and didn't care that his tone didn't agree with the word. "I was in a hurry." Spike snorted and went on removing the broken glass. 

Behind the barrier, the humans' voices rose in screams of outrage. Bricks ground together as the pile shifted; the humans were climbing over. 

"Come on," Angel said, jerking his chin toward the mouth of the alley. 

Spike sighed and muttered to himself, but moved, hissing a little as the wound in his thigh pulled. "What in the bleeding fuck is your hurry?" he said. 

_Connor._

But he was spared having to answer; as he came out of the alley, something large registered off to his right and a split second later he collided with a R'ych. They fell, grappling with each other, the R'ych trying to use its claws, and after a moment Angel was able to plant his foot in the middle of the demon's chest; he grabbed a double handful of its studded leather harness and used his foot to flip it over his head. It landed flat of its back, stunned, and Angel was up and slashing its head off before it could get up. The struggle, however, had taken them into the middle of the street. 

The unshaded, very sunny middle of the street. 

Angel yelped and swore as his skin started to smoke. He dived for the shadows, landing in a shoulder roll that put him into a crouch as he came out of it, his sword striking sparks as it hit the pavement. 

Spike grabbed Angel's arm and hauled him to his feet. "Goddamn it, Angel . . . " he began, but stopped when a shout of triumph came from the alley as the humans came over the top of the barricade. In front of them, just turning a corner, another R'ych stopped short at the noise. It looked back, saw the vampires, and shouted, obviously calling back its fellows. 

"I do _Not. Have. Time_ for this shit." Angel spat the words through his teeth. The R'ych, now seething out of the cross-street, were, of course, coming from the direction he needed to go; he could see the sun winking off the necro-tinted windows of what was left of the Wolfram  & Hart building, a dozen blocks behind the demons. Whatever their mission there, they'd completed it. Angel hefted his sword in a two-handed grip and let his face change. His son was in danger, and if he had to go through a hundred R'ych to get to Connor, then that's what he was going to do, and be damned to anything else. 

He sprang forward, snarling, his blade already whistling through the air to strike off the closest R'ych head. 

***

There hadn't been much of a plan, really, but Spike was fairly sure the gist included sticking together?band of buggered, dying with boots on, brothers in arms?some tune along those lines. That had been all right, not too fancy, easy to follow. They weren't what anybody would consider a sophisticated fighting machine, after all, just a bunch of stiffs trying to sell their lives at a steep markup, to grab a bit of glory; to give a little back, dismemberment-wise, before the inevitable slaughter. 

Simple. Totally fucking simple. So of course Angel had chucked the playbook and split off, effectively screwing what little poetry might have been squeezed out of the whole stupid mess. Spike used his irritation to good effect on every snaggletoothed, pig-snouted spear carrier unlucky enough to get in his way and followed Angel. Always following Angel. Spike was nearly as annoyed with himself as he was with the mighty ponce. 

With every city block Angel got crazier, faster and wilder, mowing down the opposition like tall grass. Spike could barely keep up. R'ych began to break and flee; Angel laid them low and charged on. A few froze in his path, cowering, and Angel hewed them like a mad samurai and leapt over the gushing corpses. None of the merry abandon and dash of, say, St. Petersburg, but blood by the bucketful, small rivers of it. "Angel!" bellowed Spike, pausing to put a fist through the throat of a flanking R'ych. The R'ych's mates swarmed up the heap of rubble and piled on. "Angel!" 

Angel vanished at the corner of Wilshire and Western. Spike tore himself free from his attackers and gave chase, following the corpses. 

***

Red lightning forked across the sky, turning the shattered glass around Wolfram & Hart into a carpet of rubies. Half the building had pancaked, and naked girders protruded like bones. A frigid, stinking current of air billowed from it like a fog. It struck Spike as a very bad place to loiter. 

A fierce animal cry rose from the rubble and Spike drove forward, down into the belly of it, through the tangled metal and stench. The whole trash heap was shaking, every surface slicked by fire sprinklers and hissing pipes. Spike lost his grip and his sword, and slalomed down a sickening drop, landing in a sprawl on the lip of a chasm. His sword pinwheeled away into infinity. The edge beneath his hand crumbled. Spike scrambled back. 

Angel was hunched on the far side, immobile. 

"Angel!" 

Angel didn't look up. A tremor loosed several girders and a hail of masonry. Spike crept forward, feeling his way around the edge, talking over the rising thunder to keep his nerve. 

"Angel, let's be going. This asteroid may not be entirely stable. Lots of bad guys up there still, lots to do yet. Come on, Angel. I'm gonna leave you, you sod! Don't think I won't." 

Angel didn't move, except to bow lower over the rubble. A dangling fixture exploded with a pop, and by the light of the cascading sparks Spike saw that Angel was clutching a pale human hand. 

A leap brought Spike to Angel's side. Ah, Jesus. It was that kid from the office, the college boy. His torso was pinned by a piling on the chasm's edge, and Spike had no doubt the kid's other half was somewhere at the bottom. Spike touched Angel's shoulder. It was as cold and still as granite. "That's rotten," said Spike sadly, nodding at the boy. "Don't think we can do anything for him, though." 

Angel said nothing. 

The rubble above them whined with stress. "Gotta leave him, mate," said Spike. "This place is going fast." 

Angel looked up then, and the dumb animal suffering in his eyes struck Spike like a blow. Right there?that was the soul. Spike had never seen Angel's soul before. How terrible that the soul only really got humming when it brought pain, when it was torturing a guy in some hole in the ground. 

"Get out," whispered Angel. 

"Wrong, sorry. Not without you." 

"I can't leave him again." Angel hunched forward convulsively, face contorting, and crushed the limp hand to his mouth. "He's my only boy. He's my good boy." 

There was more than enough shit falling from the sky; maybe Angel had taken a knock to the head. "We'll come back for him," lied Spike. 

A convulsion shook the ruins and the ledge disintegrated. The piling fell, and the boy with it, and Angel threw himself after both for good measure. His sword followed Spike's on a general hellward trajectory. Spike caught Angel by the waist and twisted, clawing for purchase. 

Angel fought him. The building gave a dying scream. Above and through the noise Spike heard a rolling boom, like a giant's footsteps, rhythmic, relentless, drawing closer, making the earth shiver with every fall. 

"Right," grated Spike. "That's all. We're off." 

The boy's sleeve had come away in Angel's grasp. Angel abruptly abandoned struggle and became a dead weight, the goddamned idiot. Spike squinted and craned, trying to shield Angel from the avalanching debris and spy a way out. 

No sense in trying for the way they'd come. Spike pulled Angel away from the edge and manhandled him toward the gaps where the collapse was total, following red flashes from the distant, boiling sky. 

***

The R'ych army had broken up into packs, big with the smashing and pillage, and much easier to avoid. Spike shoved Angel into the concealment of a shop front. "I'm beginning to wonder if you gave this plan a lot of thought. Hey, Angel. Snap to, you tosser. I'm questioning your leadership over here." 

Angel had slumped against the door when Spike released him, his body limp and passive. The torn sleeve lay curled in his fingers. Angel's gaze was fixed, unblinking and empty - no soul burning in anguish there now, like a pyre on a hilltop: nobody home. 

Spike's flesh crept. He knelt and snapped his fingers sharply, desperately. "Angel! I said this was a stupid plan. You're a bad boss, nobody likes you, and if you don't get it together I'm taking over. How do you like that?" 

Angel made no answer. Spike shook him. "Angel. Don't. The show's not over, man. Don't fucking quit on us now." 

Angel's eyes swam into focus, meeting Spike's, and for a moment life flared in them. "It's . . . It's . . ." 

"What?" asked Spike gently. "What is it?" 

Angel made as if to speak again, but the words died on his lips, a formless whisper fraying to silence. Very carefully, he tucked the shred of cloth away in a pocket. His gaze fell, and the big shaggy head, powdered with dust and flecked with blood, listed to one side. Spike caught it in his hands. 

"Don't," said Spike again. 

Spike felt him go, like the moon passing away behind a ragged curtain of rain. 

And then there was nothing, nothing at all. Lights out. 

  
  
  


## Act Three

Midday. The sun beat down, a bronze hammer striking an anvil of concrete and steel. Daylight stabbed through the cracked ceiling of the warehouse, illuminating the smashed vending machine which spilled its treasure-trove of brightly-colored bags and bundles across the floor. On his crude cot of rags and shredded insulation, Charles Gunn lay in feverish, uneasy sleep, measuring out the seconds of his life to the hollow plink of water dripping from the broken pipe in the men's restroom. A small pile of torn wrappers lay on the floor beside him; already an assembly line of ants had formed to deal with the crumbs. 

Illyria perched on the rusting forklift in the center of the debris-strewn floor. Head cocked, eyes glinting like lapis, she waited for Gunn to die. It was vexing. Angel was Gunn's lord, Spike his comrade; it should have been they who knelt at his side and performed the menial tasks of providing nourishment and cleaning up its aftereffects. These were unpleasant. Spike had assured her that 'Twinkies' remained fit for human consumption for millennia, but she had reason now to doubt that particular information. 

They did not want to see Gunn die. That was the only explanation. In the face of so much death, Angel could not bear one more ending for which he was responsible. Though it was she who had delivered Gunn from the pocket hell the Wolf, Ram, and Hart had consigned him to, enabling him to die in this more expansive one, so it was fitting that she take up the obligations which Angel shirked. A warrior's death should not pass unobserved and unhonored. If they had forgotten what was due, she had not. 

The still, sun-pierced air of the warehouse bled motes of gold. A fly bumbled through the shafts of light in a Brownian quest, finally alighting on the unconscious man's forehead. The dark, strained face twitched, and the fly buzzed up in alarm, only to light again and set forth on its mindless trek across the curve of sweat-burnished mahogany skull. Illyria leaned forward, arms folded across her knees, watching the laboring ribs rise and fall and rise again. Involuntary spasms of existence, going on long after there was no more point, no more purpose. The irony of their positions did not escape her. 

Resentment. This was resentment. How small, how limited had she become, when this petty little rat-chewed emotion was all she was capable of feeling, when once the city would have shaken with the force of her wrath? She considered: weep in shame? Rage in frustration? Unproductive, both of them, and as such beneath her, even in her current enfeebled state. 

Wesley was dead, his absence an aching hollowness no amount of violence could assuage. Gunn would die soon. And then what? Angel would not brook her as an equal or a superior, and she was not minded to bow the neck to him, either. Spike . . . Spike amused her, intrigued her, exasperated her. His nature was to follow even as he professed indifference and independence. Angel was his master now, but she knew that if it pleased her, she could win him to her side. Spike had been fond of the shell, of Winifred Burkle. The shell's memories held confidences, secrets, late-night drunken outpourings of Spike's sorrows, fears and regrets. Spike was not fond of Illyria, but perversely, he lusted after her as he had never lusted after Fred. 

She could, if she wished, exploit that lust and her secret knowledge and bring Spike to his knees before her. Spike could teach her much ? more, perhaps, than Wesley could have, for Spike possessed a facility for giving himself over wholly to the moment. And this moment ? she squeezed her eyes shut. Once she had walked from world to world and time to time with surety, seen the limitless possibilities of the yet to come crystallize out of the now with all the intricate chaotic beauty of frost-ferns growing upon glass. Now ? now this moment, this single bead upon a chain, was all she had. 

She dismissed the idea. It would be a pathetic imitation of her old lordship, a game as pointless as her electronic battles with Crash Bandicoot. She refused to acknowledge the secret worm of fear within?if she employed the shell's memories, the shell's fondness, for her own purposes again, as she had with Wesley, would those purposes once again become tainted? At first she had considered those memories a tool to be used at her whim; now they seemed a snare set to drag her deeper into the muck of humanity. 

This world and its inhabitants were dust and ashes to her ? if she was not to be its ruler, whither, then, Illyria? Assisting Angel in his games of power and vengeance had allowed her to avoid the question, but that was no longer an option. 

She rose to her feet with insectile grace. Through the cracks in the roof she could catch glimpses of infinity beyond. Swaying on the forklift's out-thrust tines, gazing up at the spun-steel spider web of catwalks and scaffolding overhead, she lifted eyes to the sky, blue calling to blue. There were answers to her questions, but they did not lie in human mouths. Beyond these walls were her kin, her kind. She could feel the lodestone pull of their nearness in her breast. Their presence was a dissonance to the vampires, tainted as they were with human desire and human frailty, but her body vibrated to their calls as to organ-chords drawn from the bones of the earth itself, too deep and subtle for mortal ears. 

She threw back her head with a long-drawn ululation of summons and loss. Words like the wail of a theremin, beautiful and desolate, spoken as much mind to mind as tongue to ear. Without the warehouse, all was silent. A second time she called, and a third, and then she waited. Time passed, measured by the rattle of Charles Gunn's breath in his throat. And then . . . 

The ground rippled, the walls shivered, the roof quaked. Mantis-swift, Illyria leaped for the catwalk overhead, caught the railing and swung herself up, kicked off and leaped again, higher and higher, swinging girder to girder until at last she clutched the jagged tar-paper edge where roof-beam parted from roof-beam and the vast shell of concrete cracked wide, an egg parting before the birth-pangs of the monster within. She pulled herself up and stood on the slanting windy expanse of the roof, torn shingles curling about her feet. All around the shattered city stretched off to the horizon, a moonscape of crumpled buildings and abandoned cars. In the cracks of the sidewalks below, the weeds were thrusting small green shoots up to sunder brick from brick. The green was reclaiming its own, but it had not had long to work ? weeks, perhaps, or months at most. She could have told the vampires as much had they thought to ask. 

And to either side of Illyria's vantage, a pillar of writhing serpents reared mountain-high, scaled and armor-plated: nightmares walking upon the green and daylight earth. She knew them: Yscatha, carapace blue-black and gleaming, tentacles fretted with silver, a pinwheel galaxy in motion. Varuliytha, the color of sunrise, her sinuous limbs a corruscation of flame. 

Hope rose in her breast, and an alien, animal fear, remnant of the shell's primitive network of nerves and reflexes. She quashed both ruthlessly. She had not realized before this moment how very small was the shell which housed her, but Illyria stood tall and proud to face her kin. 

_Who calls?_

"It is I, Illyria!" she shouted, "god-king of the Primordium, Lord of the Frozen City, Ravager of Ahkarth-T'quon!" 

A blast of sound and sensation hit her - an aural world-map, a symphony of time. Illyria fell sprawling to the rooftop, hands clenched over her ears as a riptide of information surged through her brain and receded, leaving her gasping. For this she could have wept in truth; the nuances of the reply were beyond her present form's capacity to comprehend. So much she could gather: they had not departed Angel's spell-pocket into the same world from which they had entered it. Head whirling, she levered herself upright, unwilling to give up the slightest advantage of position. 

Varuliytha swayed overhead, manipulatory tentacles drawing serpentine hieroglyphs upon the air. A row of eyes like small moons glowed in the shadow of zher carapace. In the rubble of the sidewalk below the tree-trunk-wide coils of zher ambulatory tentacles wreathed hunks of shattered concrete like serpents of molten gold, and when zhe spoke, zher voice was a rain of vipers. _Illyria?_

Illyria tossed cobalt hair over her shoulders and lifted her chin. "I am none other." 

The vast ophidian bulk quivered in negation. _Illyria is eons dead. Neiyeshreeva slew sver, and banished sver essence to the Well. Long rhe displayed sver carapace in rher halls, until ?_

"I am returned from the Deeper Well." Illyria banished the streaks of roof-grime from her raiment ? a little enough display of power, but she would concede nothing to such as these. "My form is new, but my essence is yet Illyria. Taste of it if you doubt. And if Neiyeshreeva yet lives, I shall use rher skull plating for a feast-day cup." 

_Neiyeshreeva is long dead - rhe was slain as we were driven from Earth's halls and into the cold between the worlds. Rhe rested beside thee in the Well these long ages since._ The two great heads dipped together, dark and bright, conversing in pulses of sound that made her ears ring and her bones ache. A long, delicate proboscis flickered in the air over her head, dawn-pink and flexible. Varuliytha's mandibles clicked in surprise. _Thy essence has in it something of Illyria, but . . ._

Yscatha's ventricles pulsed and the air boomed with inhuman laughter. _Illyria returned from the Deeper Well? To crouch like a rat in the company of humans and half-breeds? Better to have remained there in the long sleep of death than to have fallen so low as thou hast._

"My return was prophesied," Illyria retorted. If she knew nothing else, she knew this. Her return had been foretold even before the death of her true form; in some manner, her destiny yet lay before her, if only she could descry its shape and grasp it by the hilt. "I am not so much a fool as to deny the workings of prophecy, but I grant you leave to do so. Ye have yet your true forms. Tell me how comes this to be so." 

_What has not been lost need not be regained,_ Varulithya replied with a rippling sneer. _A lesson it is too late for thee to learn._

"I saw thee hatched, eggling, and forbore to eat thee. Now I am returned, and ?" _Desirest thine old estate? Not so easily are such wishes granted._ A tentacle lashed out, ink-black and gleaming, whip-coiled round her middle, plucked her up and flung her away. Illyria tumbled ignobly down the slope of the roof and slammed into the retaining wall at its edge. She ground her teeth and clambered to her feet, fisting her hands at her side in humiliated fury. This was no time to plot vengeance for such a petty slight, though such a time might come. For now . . . "Thy insolence is unchanged, at least, oh enemy of my enemies. My path is no longer clear to me. Thou speakest truly ? this form is limited, and time's curtains are closed to me. What I require of thee is knowledge." 

Varuliytha pulled a car free of the pile of wrecked vehicles on the corner of the street and crushed it absently. _Whatever thou art, thou art no kin of ours any longer. Thy path has naught to do with us._

Anger bubbled up within, its icy power cracking the stone of her reserve. "I am neither blind nor foolish. Are old debts then so easily forgotten? I showed thee favor once, Yscatha." 

Yscatha reared back, manipulatory tentacles coiling in distaste. _Thou art one with the human filth now, Illyria, returned to me weak and sconced in a form I despise. I look upon thee with disgust. Until I recall the days of our mating dance, when thou wert glorious against the sun as a cluster of swords, and my disgust becomes sorrow. Dost desire a swift and merciful release, and a return to thy long sleep?_

She shook her head. "There is reason for my return. I thought it was conquest, but my armies are dust, and the humans we despised now bear weapons that turn cities to molten slag in the space of a moment." 

Her cousins writhed in amusement. _That time-path is long withered on the vine, O Sve Who Was Illyria, and the flowers thereof never bore fruit._

Illyria frowned. "Indeed? Much has changed, then, for it was not so when first I awoke. Look thou, Yscatha, along the path I must walk, and tell me where it leads." 

Rhe arched over her, a cascade of silver and jet, serpent and rainbow in one, and for a moment Illyria, too, recalled their dance with something that was neither love nor lust as humans knew them, but which had caused its share of wars to be fought in times long past. 

_For the sake of the favor thou didst once show me, I look, though little good will what I see do thee. Thy footsteps are tangled, and thy future is as a mist, changing as I watch, for thou art mutable now ? thou hast three pasts, O Illyria, and three futures. Thou art the ghost in the shell, and the dead shall give thee life, as thou shalt give life to what is dead. A serpent shall rise up to smite thee, and thou shalt crush it even as it bites thy heel._

Despair filled her. Human words had no way to convey what she must know, and human words were all that was left to her. "Is there no more than this?" 

Rher tentacles entwined her limbs, dry and cool, the memory of a memory - this shell had never felt their embrace, known the pain and pleasure, the risk and reward, of such entanglement. _Naught I have the skill to see. But for the sake of the favor thou once showed to me, I give thee this. It may be that thou shalt have need of it, by and by._ The muscular coils fell away, and at her feet a small object rolled across the rooftop ? a blue-black ovoid, covered in leathery, tightly-lapped scales, each one rimmed in silvery-grey. 

Illyria bent to pick it up; it throbbed with a cool alien life in her palm, and the leaf-scales quivered ever so slightly at her touch. She looked up, eyes wide startled pools of sky. "What meanst thou, giving this to me at such a time?" 

Yscatha fell away, slithering down the long slope of the roof. Varuliytha had already set off, leveling supermarkets in zher wake. _Farewell, Illyria. Speak to me not again; it pains me too much to see thee so reduced. If we met again, I shall kill thee._

And Illyria, god-king of the Primordium, was alone once more on the windy rooftop, questions unanswered, and a gift unlooked-for cradled in her hands. 

***

"Bugger, bugger, bugger." 

Spike repeated his litany for the thousandth time while maneuvering his great big petrified lump of a grandsire into the warehouse. Whiling away the hours till sunset in the company of a round dozen corpses, all of which were more animated than Angel, hadn't done wonders for his temper. What perfect bad timing the old man had picked to come all over Awakenings on him. At first the old bastard had been limp, and it hadn't been that big a problem for Spike to sling him into a fireman's carry and slog back to home base, dodging the remaining R'ych patrols. But then the old drama queen had gone stiff as a board and his hard head had cracked the pavement in dozens of places, a perfect trail of head crumbs for someone to follow. There was no way Spike could get him inside like this, all starfished rigidity. The square head was tipped back, the brown eyes stared sightlessly; one arm flung out, the long legs frozen straight. 

"Sorry, Rigor-Morty," he muttered insincerely and did what he had to do. 

He bent the stiff legs by kicking them behind the knees, and then cracked the elbows like balky kindling. That left the head stubbornly sticking out beyond the dimensions the doorway would tolerate. If he broke Angel's neck, how long would it take him to recuperate? There was no alternative. Or? 

Spike finally tipped the heavy body over completely. It toppled in slow motion and thudded dully on the ruined tarmac. Angel stiff cheeks shuddered faintly from the impact but his eyes stared up unperturbed at the clear night sky. Spike gripped one ankle and dragged Angel inside. And if there was part of him enjoying seeing the old sod hefted about like a slab of concrete, so what? 

He bumped into something unmoving but not as hard as the walls of the shelter. 

"Kindly get out of my way, oh mighty god-king," Spike said. "We need to get your pal, the former ruler of Wolfram & Heart, inside or he'll poof come sunrise." 

"What ails Angel?" Illyria said. "Why does he not move? He has not the excuse of being wounded, like my Charles Gunn." 

Spike sighed. He could really have used some nice vole, or even a pint of pig. He eyed Illyria's neck, but it didn't stir him if there was no scent accompanying the visual. She stood there with her arms stiffly crossed, exaggerated as an idol, a blue-tinted mixture of Madonna and Coatlicue. The encrusted knobs and protrusions on her armor weren't really nipples and breasts, which he knew, but his eyes lingered on them nonetheless. 

"Bugger if I know, pet. He just up and came over stiff on me, all sudden-like. Turned into a giant boner with nowhere to put it." 

"So now I am left with but one pitiful minion? That is not acceptable." 

"So I'm pitiful, eh? Might wanna play a bit nicer with the only team mate you've got left. Not your minion, by the way." 

Illyria stepped squarely in front of him, apparently determined to be contrary and uppity. Why did he never meet sweet biddable women? Something he ate? 

"Is this deliberate insult, vampire? A cherished minion is fallen. You disabled a valuable ally and now you think to best me while I stand naked without my retinue?" 

"Never realized you were going about starkers, love. And cherished minion, eh? Charlie boy will be thrilled when I tell him you called him that. How is he doing?" 

"He lives still. His body is weakening further under the onslaught of the small creatures. His paltry defenses need shoring? "

"Yeah, yeah, lashings of fun, I get the point already." 

Illyria was pacing up and down in the confined space, clutching a half-glimpsed lump between her cupped hands. 

"Intolerable," she muttered. "Intolerable." 

She raised her eyes to him and seemed to come to a decision. 

"We will leave Angel," she said crisply. "Follow me." 

"Like hell I will," Spike said. "What are you on about? Where could you wanna go? Taking Charles to another human hospital? They'd shoot you on sight!" 

"That is none of your concern, vampire. You will obey me. Cease this yammering and come." 

She jerked her head towards the exit like a hungry raptor. 

"I'm not leaving Angel! He's just ? I dunno, shell-shocked maybe." 

"You defy me? Consider yourself released from my service, puling crossbreed. I leave now." 

"You can't just leave like that! We're a team, you need us!" He hoped. "We need you. Illyria!" 

She was gone. Spike dropped his head in his hands. Not because he despaired, because he didn't do despair, but to gather his thoughts for a mo. It was all up to him now, wasn't it? Great leaders and allied gods had a) gone catatonic, or b) scarpered. Item c), one severely damaged fighter, wouldn't last a day if things went on like this. He could do this, though, he had the skills. Years of experience in ordering minions about didn't just evaporate. Frozen Angel was a breeze after psychotic Dru; he just needed a few seconds to determine priorities. 

He rummaged through the pile of goodies Illyria had liberated from the vending machine and peeled the wrapper off a semi-petrified Slim Jim. At least it contained ingredients that had touched blood once, and in its current condition it probably kept the fangs nice and shiny. It was a good thing that Buffy and Dawn at least were safely in Rome. Spike pictured them shopping for bright clothes till they dropped and eating ice cream until their sweet little bellies bulged, because that's what they deserved. Dancing and flirting and not a care in their pretty heads for once. Or fuck, playing canasta on the porch of the Old Slayer's home, for all he knew. Didn't matter. He was here because he'd chosen the high road, hadn't he? It was a sodding miracle he was alive at all and he'd damn well better live up to it. 

Right, no more fart-arsing about. Back to the man of stone. He tossed the Slim Jim over one shoulder and slapped Angel. Bitch-slap first, then harder. It was like clouting the Judge, only without the instant death. No result, of course. He reconsidered for a moment and started shaking the massive shoulders. The stony immovability collapsed and became complete slackness. Angel's head lolled forward and backwards on neck muscles limp as noodles and Spike stopped when the whole upper body sagged against his. Was this progress or had he made it worse? Couldn't be shaken baby syndrome with a grown vampire, eh? 

"Come on," he muttered into the smoothly shaven neck, still smelling faintly of Egoiste put on lavishly but long ago. Hadn't had his nose in Angel's neck for a century. "Come on, you berk. You never gave up before, never ever. You ate fucking rats for a fucking century, you stubborn Paddy block of concrete. I don't believe you've given up on us now. You're faking it. This is the brilliant fall-back plan, isn't it? Jesus. Buffy sent you to hell for a hundred years, you pigheaded idiot. This is nothing. Don't get why you went all statue over that boy." 

_That's not gonna wake him up, Spike, you stupid sod._ Remind him of better times, why don't you? Spike pitched his voice higher. "Oooh, Angel? Darla's here. Wakey wakey, you flaming gorgeous hunk of vampire beef! She wants you to go out and kill some nice insane brunette novices together. And whatever you do, don't forget to pork them beforehand." 

Angel didn't react, still looking like a man who took an Irish car bomb. 

Abruptly Spike was deeply pissed off. This was the lowest, most aggravating flipping trick Angel could have pulled off. Take the disposable teammates along on his stupid plan, destroying LA and possibly the world in the process, and now he was copping out on them for a college boy? No way. No. This wasn't Spike's fucking gig, after all. This was a right bloody cock-up, but it wasn't his. He was simply caught in it. Trapped in a snow globe. Only the snow was dust, wasn't it? Dust and ashes and . . . 

"I knew you were wrong," he whispered viciously into the still ear. "We all knew that. We all knew we were gonna kick it. And we still followed you, you sack of shite. Your fuckwitted plan. Taking down ten guys when there are zillions more. What for, Angel, what was it bloody for? 

"But we still did it. It killed Wesley. The man fucking worshipped you. You've probably killed Charlie-boy here. And let's not forget the people you dumped by the wayside on the road to this utter pinnacle of botched-up. Fred is gone, Cordelia Chase is gone. You spoiled Buffy for all comers-after, you fucking tosser. And now all you got left are a dead guy with lousy decision skills and a sociopathic ex-god." 

Spike held Angel tighter, knuckling the shorn hair in his nape. "And maybe you you've been there before. All you had then were an ex-whore and an ex-nun and an ex-poet, all crazy as batshit. What's so hard about this sitch, this time? That boy? Snap out of it. Coz even though you're wrong, you're all we've got and we need you. I got your back." 

There was no response in the slack body of his grandsire. Of course not. Why did he even bother saying all this? Why bother feeling it? Wanting that great oaf to wake up and take the reins, like that would lead to anything good. All his unlife Angel had been there, foreground or background, but always larger than life, always popping up at the worst possible moment, indestructible and grinning like a Jack-in-the-box. 

Spike leaned close. "Angel. On the level now. You tried, you failed. You oughta be happy, 'cause failing's your thing, innit? If at first you don't succeed, fail, fail again. You've got plenty of practice at it. And look, you finally picked a fight you knew you couldn't win! That's excellent personal progress, ya dumb bogtrotter. So wake the fuck up." 

Something outside moved, displacing enormous quantities of air, abusing his inner ear till it popped. The presence thrust into Spike's brain soup, stirring thoroughly to smooth out the lumps, making him feel as unsettled and shaky as a new fledgling. He felt his game face slamming over him like an iron helmet with the visor down. What the hell? One of the Old Ones was passing by, talking to his demon in its own language, making him feel like a jet-lagged tourist in his own body. 

The crunch of shifting bone and slithering sensation like plastic melting against his cheek signaled that Angel was suiting up as well. The old man was affected by the sticky fingers in his brain, same as him. Spike forced down the game face with an effort that made his head ache. 

The heavy sack of potatoes piling against him changed into a person again, snapping taut, feeling instantly lighter. 

"Spike? Wha?" 

Spike found himself staring into a pair of confused, familiar golden eyes. Then Angel's head lowered like a bull's just before the charge and two icy-hot pokers pierced Spike's neck. 

"Fuck. Angel!" Spike flopped like a fish in Angel's vise-like hold, too flabbergasted to offer any focused resistance. It was a coal of fire; a sweeping lassitude; an ember searing his guts, and a perfect kiss of peace. Arrows of pain pierced his arms and numbness claimed his legs. His cock mistook this for another situation altogether and strangled itself in the stiff folds of his jeans, blindly seeking the direction his blood was minded to go. Spike's blood wanted the burn, the cold heat. It wanted kin, and cared nothing for competition, sorrow, jealousy or the past. This was what being a vampire was all about, this delirious instant of giving in the only way a vampire might give: to be tasted, to be consumed, to deliver oneself up. He hadn't been really touched for so long, barring that exercise in blue balls with Harmony . . . Fuck, it felt good; it felt like home, being pierced simultaneously by Darla Dru Angel, punishment and reward? 

Very nice, utterly fucking brilliant, in fact, but he had to get a grip. He refused to be reduced to pudding by memories ? or cold slow lips, pulling, pulling ? he wasn't that pathetically eager little fledge any more. He was a sodding hero, and turnabout was fair play. Spike growled and tore down Angel's shirt to bare the muscled neck. 

Angel paused for a second to grin up at him, his expression comically enlarged by his extra-wide bloody mouth. "What are you thinking, boy, that you can drink from your betters now?" 

Yep, that was the Angel he knew and loved. Er, loathed. 

"Forgetting who kicked whose arse, aren't we? No more of that sire-and-get bullshit," Spike snarled. Goad the old bastard, get him on his feet, that's the ticket. Time enough to aim him in the right direction later. 

He turned his head, fingers digging deep in the meaty shoulders, fangs digging deeper into Angel's thick neck, latching onto him like a vicious baby. 

***

Outside the warehouse, Illyria gazed into the sky. Cockroaches scurried busily around her heels. She moved slightly, brushing the little insects aside from danger; she would not see them crushed. Since rising from the Deeper Well, she had communed with their breed from time to time, ever since she found them in the basements of the Wolfram & Hart building. Graceful little creatures scuttling into cracks in the walls . . . she had felt lost among shadows, heir to nothing but dust, upon that day, but when she saw them, her spirits had lifted. The little brothers! Much smaller than they had once been, yet so was she. Handsome little brothers with their busy mandibles, their manifold sharp and cunning legs, their shining carapaces. Handsome cockroaches ? no wonder their females kept so busy, multiplying. Like the shark and the tarantula, they were more closely related to her than the soft, repulsive humans who thought they owned the earth. Heirs to nothing, ephemeral, fragile, and hemmed in by time. Mammalian vermin, she thought, even the vampires had inherited the taint of human desire and limitations, so dismayed by the ruins of their paltry city. Ruination, devastation, destruction ? such things meant nothing to the cockroaches. They were wiser than mere mammals. Time did not change them. They were true survivors, like her. They were her own. 

She had recognized the roaches then, and felt less bereft. She had sought them out afterward, whenever she felt most irrevocably astray. It pleased her to think that some things never changed. She moved restlessly, heels clicking on pavement; the cockroaches followed, teeming in her wake, delicate antennae wavering inquisitively. They knew their kin, as she knew hers. They shunned humans, but they were not shy with her. 

Wesley had taught her about paleontology and the history of species ? at least, he had related the garbled nonsense that passed for human scholarship. She knew better, of course. What room for her kind was there in his philosophy? But his fabrications, ah, his fabrications had entertained her. But Wesley was dead. Her kin had spurned her. She had lost everything that had once been hers: empire and godhood, her wide and dire dominions, all she had conquered, all who had dreaded her, all she had prized. She, who had been the nightmare and the dream combined. 

And again, the grief of their rejection pierced her ? Yscatha, Varuliytha, ancient in their beauty, how could they wound her so? They had dealt so generously with her, showing her mercy. And ah, it grated, it stung ? and all this, these loathsome feelings, were proof of how right they had been to spurn her. She touched her carapace, the small new lump between her breasts . . . dusky crimson now, camouflaged to blend in with her armor. It had changed shape, and nestled there like a pressed flower, leathery petals rimmed yet with a trace of silver-grey. She folded her arms protectively over it, as she had earlier, within, when she was talking with Spike. She bowed her head and shook her hair forward, to lie in blue elf-locks over her chest. Gifting and crushing her in one gesture calculated to carry remembrance of what she could no longer do. Cruel Varuliytha. 

_Perhaps I am no god, but I am yet Illyria. How dare they insult me with their pity?_

Illyria slipped to her knees in the dusty street, laid a hand flat on the pavement. A cockroach climbed trustingly into it; she raised it like an offering. As these tiny insects were to human beings, so was she to her own kind now. A minuscule annoyance. And she stood alone, as the cockroaches were without friends or allies. But she would survive. Like the roaches, she would outlive her foes. 

Her head turned sharply, and the roach slipped between her fingers and ran down her wrist and arm, falling to freedom. It fled, hearing the approach of enemies. Illyria rose, listening intently. Marching humans, with guns and gunpowder-that stink of mammalian flesh, of iron and chemicals? It could be nothing else. And they were coming nearer. 

Would she take command of these armed humans? Yes, lead them to slay the souled vampires and then, bringing more and more humans under her generalship, forge them into a new army of doom, defeat her rival Old Ones, and rule again over the earth. 

Or ? perhaps she should lead the humans to the nearest Old One, offering them as tribute, and then demand to be accepted again? 

Or ? let them come, lead the two vampires against them, paint the asphalt in splashes, in screaming music, in arpeggios of scarlet? 

The humans were coming closer, they were about to turn the corner and see her, and she was paralyzed between choice and choice and choice, unable to move for conflicting impulses. Somehow she did not want the vampires to die ? she had even thought of them as allies. What she could no longer accomplish alone, she might yet achieve if she chose the right allies. She was no kin to her own kind anymore. Varuliytha and Yscatha had been correct. There was no going back to what she had been. 

A fallen god, a poor king, she hesitated only a second longer. And she turned, into the new world, into herself, choosing a path and disappearing into it, leaving behind a new taste lingering on the air for the patrol to contemplate when they rounded the corner. 

  
  
  


## Act Four

This was every vampire's dream, really. Endlessly filled and emptied, emptied and filled. And here they were, two of the baddest motherfuckers ever to stalk the living earth, mewling like babies, rolling around in their own? 

"Get off!" Spike forced his hands between them, then a knee, and then his boot. Angel went skidding across the cement floor on his arse. He'd rolled into crouch before he even came to stop, eyes fixed on Spike's mouth, mesmerized by the sight of his own blood tricking from it. Spike swiped the back of his hand over his lips. Angel charged again. Again, he was shoved to the ground, a kidney punch thrown in for good measure. 

"Not - _not_ \- fooling around here, right?" Spike pointed a finger at him like a cocked pistol. "Whatever's going on? Whatever you're pulling now? This shit? Doesn't fly anymore." 

Angel swabbed the blood at the corner of his own mouth with his thumb, and then pointedly licked it off. "Better not look up then," he said, "'cause shit's flying every-damned-where." As if in answer, a shadow moved overhead, obliterating the jagged ribbons of light on the floor and the walls. Angel let out a breathless chuckle. "You think we might actually die this time?" 

Good question. Perhaps it was the impossibility, the enormity, the sheer scale of a thing that could, literally, eclipse the moon while taking a stroll across the earth. Difficult enough to grasp earlier. The more Spike thought about it, the less he found he could. It made his mind go belly-up. The thin vestigial skin of his human self prickled with gooseflesh. He wanted to crawl under a rock for several million years in the hope that when he emerged there would be puppies playing in fields of daisies. At the same time a need, just as urgent was pulling at them both - the urge to embrace the demons inside them and answer the call. Come out, come out, whatever you are. From his pallet on the floor, Gunn gave a strangled, delirious cry, as if he knew his humanity doomed him, and not his wounds. The shadow spent an eternity passing overhead. 

Again, Angel laughed. In fact, he seemed positively giddy with the irony of it all. He gazed at Spike, and this time his expression was all fanged indolence and golden-eyed diablerie. A memory - Angelus grabbing him by the hair and pulling him over a dead girl in the bed between them - struck him like a blow to the solar plexus. "Oh shit," he whispered. Angel sprang at him. Spike managed to twist sideways, his heel connecting with ribs. A puff of plaster dust anointed Angel's head when he hit the wall, and he stayed as he'd landed, drunkenly listing to the side. The demon's face melted away. The grin remained. "Your boot says no, but your eyes say -" He didn't get to finish. Spike was on him, every intention of punching a fist clean through the bastard's skull, squeezing the brain between his fingers like so much ground pork. 

"You son of a bitch. You. Bloody. Stupid. Cunt. You did this! You did this, and you don't even care! Bastardbastardbastardbastard -" He punched until his knuckles were screaming pain and Angel hung slack from his shirt collar, head lolling to one side. His brow was gashed open. There was blood oozing from his ear. His shoulders shook, and tears streamed down his face. 

Spike stood there, fist cocked, paralyzed with compassion as all his good rage went pissing down the drain. It wasn't until he'd let Angel drop that he realized what the shaking and tears were about. Wasn't beaten down, or put in his place, or stricken with guilt, horror, shame. He just couldn't be arsed to fight back. 

Angel was helpless with laughter. 

Spike threw back his head and roared until his throat was raw from screaming curses. Then he collapsed to the floor in a weary heap, and propped himself against the wall next to his laughing grandsire. "What in bleeding hell is wrong with you?" He sounded hoarse and pleading. 

It took a few tries before Angel could get the words out. "It's just \- oh god - I get it now. I understand. The whole fight-you-can't-win, fists and fangs and up against the wall redneck mother crap you throw in my face. I get it. It totally kicks ass!" 

"You weren't even trying!" 

"Oh please. You're not the fight I can't win, Spike." He held up his hand to halt the inevitable correction. "Not this time, anyway. And . . . not what I'm talking about." 

"Then what? What is it?" 

"Once upon a time, I had it right. I think I had it right. A brief shining moment of being. You know? Just being. In the moment. Of the moment. No past. No future. No -" he took a deep breath "no attachments. That's the way to get on in the world. That's the secret." 

"Called yourself Angelus once upon a time, too." 

"Darla's doing. Besides, what's in a name, really?" 

"Not much I reckon, as you've still got the soul on you." 

"Oh, sorry. Does it stink? I must be standing downwind, 'cause I can't smell it at all. Can't . . . feel it, really." He twisted the piece of cloth in his hands. "Weird. But then again, it's all illusion, right? Like the guy says." 

Spike sighed, resigning himself to the role of therapist. "What guy is that, now?" 

"The one. In that movie." 

"Uh huh. Could you be more specific?" 

"You know. That guy. The _one_. With the pills." 

"Oh, fuck me. You've actually seen _The Matrix_?" 

Angel snapped his fingers. "The Matrix! That's it. Apparently, there is no spoon." 

"You're comparing your soul to a spoon, are you?" 

"I'm creating all of this. I'm creating you, even as we speak." 

Spike leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, wearily. "Create me up a pack of smokes, and a book of matches then, will you?" 

Angel reached inside the remains of his jacket and pulled out a crushed box of Benson and Hedges, and green Bic. "Best I can do on short notice." 

Spike jumped a few inches off the floor. "Bloody hell! You're taking the piss now!" His fingers trembled slightly as he drew a cigarette from the offered box and reverently smoothed out the bendy parts. He flicked the Bic, lit the fag, and took several long orgasmic drags before quirking his eyebrow at Angel. Clearly not buying the creation theory. 

"One of the things I decided to do on our final day," Angel said, air-quoting the word final. He took a cigarette for himself and touched flame to tip. A curl of smoke came out with his words. "It'd been so long, and I really, really wanted one. Couldn't ask you. I'd never hear the end of it. In fact, that would be my hell - you following me around for eternity reminding me that I'd bummed a cigarette from you." He inhaled deeply, and blew out a couple of experimental smoke rings. 

"Awww. You've included me in your hell again. That's so sweet." 

Angel put the pack back in his jacket pocket and then shucked his ruined jacket altogether. Cigarette hanging from his bottom lip, he said, "I also drank Mountain Dew. Make of that what you will." 

Spike chuckled. "Was it diet?" 

"How'd you??" 

"Last day of your life, you buy a pack of Benson and Hedges ultralight 100's. 'Course it would be diet." 

They finished their cigarettes in silence. Spike dug another out of Angel's jacket pocket, and tore off the filter before lighting it. "You? You didn't create me, Angel. Then, or now." 

"Then . . . ? Oh. Well, not like I did Dru, certainly. I _made_ her. Piece by jagged little piece." 

"Had to take her apart first though." 

Angel angled an eyeball at him. "I tried to take you apart. I remember thinking up ways to do it." 

"Recall you putting some of those ways into practice." 

"I recall you kind of . . . liked some of those ways." 

Spike swallowed. Hoped it wasn't as loud as it sounded. "I was younger. The second decade is all about experimentation." 

"We could?" 

"No. We couldn't. Not gonna bend over for you." 

"Who the fuck's asking you to?" 

"Not your boy." 

"Yeah. I got it." 

Suspicion became concern, and suddenly Spike was on a truth-digging expedition. "What are you really after here, Angel?" 

"Nothing. _Jesus._ " He leapt up, all caged beast again. "I mean, it's just - we're not animals!" 

Spike snorted. "Right. Because the fang issue just goes away once we're horizontal. Then we're just two brave soldiers at the end of the world, aren't we? And what else have we got but each other?" Angel gasped, whirling on him with a look that had Spike on his feet, and moving to his side without thinking it through. If he'd have paused to consider that well of despair in Angel's eyes, and just how deep it seemed to go, he might not have done it; he might have realized there was every chance Angel would drag him down under as well. But Spike followed his blood. As per usual. 

When a fellow was drowning, it could look like he was fighting help, when, in reality, he was desperately grasping at anything he could hold on to, some way to stay afloat. 

Angel struggled, pushed and pulled away, even as Spike reached for him, wrapped him, tight and fierce, in the cage of his arms. He stood steady. He didn't let go. 

If it was true, if all they had was each other then, by god, at least Angel would know it all the way down to his bones. Even if he hated the idea. Spike held on because he knew sooner or later, Angel was going to have to grab that rope. When he finally did, clutching Spike hard to him, it threw them both off balance. They collapsed awkwardly to the floor, half sitting, half kneeling, still holding on for dear life - an expression that struck Spike as apt and not ironic in the least. There were lives dear to him somewhere out there in the world. He had to believe that. Angel needed to remember that. 

But after a while Spike needed to scratch his nose, and his arse was cold, and his leg was bent underneath him at a weird angle. He tried not to make it seem obvious, but he was through with the clench. 

"Quit touching me," Angel muttered into his shoulder. Spiked snorted. They drew away from each other with an emotional rip not unlike Velcro. Noisy and a little embarrassing. 

"Gimme a cig," Spike demanded gruffly. Gruff was good. Covered up all the ways his voice might betray him now. 

Angel glanced around for his jacket. Tossed it to Spike without looking at him. Spike caught it out of the air, and while he took time with the business of finding a smoke and lighting it, Angel leaned against a tower of pallets; one leg splayed, one knee drawn up. He had his hand shoved into the front of his hair, like he was restyling it or contemplating pulling it out. Angel pulled his left hand from his pocket, unfurled the fist, and looked at the scrap of cloth from the dead boy's coat, not at all surprised to find it there. "Three days after I was turned, I destroyed the world. Or, at least, the world I grew up in." He brought the cloth to his nose, closed his eyes and drew the scent deep inside him. Then he laid it on his knee and smoothed it flat. "Been destroying the world ever since. I think it's finally going to stick this time." 

Spike waved furiously in the direction of the great outdoors. "Hello? World's still here! Changed is all. And anyway . . . Los Angeles is certainly not the whole goddamned world. This might be a localized sort of . . . end of the world problem. We need to find out. Need to explore. Get out of the city. Figure out our options, allies - need to get Charlie some help that's for damn sure." Angel arched a brow. "He's not dead yet! Christ. This might not even be our world, you think of that?" 

"I like the way hope clings to you, Spike. Like shit to toilet paper." Angel tucked the token from a dead boy into his shirt pocket. "This is our world. I know." 

Spike waved his hands at the now invisible evidence. "Because some college boy is dead?" 

Angel was on his feet, crushing Spike's windpipe in a blink. "Yes, you stupid little prick." His voice seemed to come from a place so deep inside him it required excavation. "That's how I know, and you?" Scowl softened to frown. The grip on Spike's throat loosened, "you . . . don't. Know. You don't know. Of course you don't." He pulled his hand away, curled into a fist that he pressed to his heart. 

Spike coughed, rubbed at his throat, unreasonably afraid to ask the question he couldn't not ask. "What? Know what?" 

"He was my son." 

A shock of recognition, and then all the odd shaped pieces slotted into place. Spike had no need to ask how or why such a thing had come to be. Required no corroboration, no confirmation other than that of his own senses. The image of Angel, mad and broken with grief, hunched over the body of that mutilated dead boy, was evidence of countless impossible things already. 

"Suffice it to say, not a story I'm interested in recounting for you," Angel said quietly. "But, everything I did?" He looked at Spike then, and his gaze was fierce in a way that had nothing to do with a demon. " _Everything_ , you understand? Was to keep him safe. He isn't anymore. He _isn't_ anymore." 

" _Christ._ Jesus. Christ, man. I'm sorry." He reached out, pressed his hand to Angel's shoulder. Angel flinched. Spike pulled his hand back. "That's a - that's a terrible, hard thing." 

"Hard part's over. It's actually kind of a relief?" He stopped, eyes wide with shock. A sound was torn from his chest, in spite of the hand still curled tight against his breastbone. "Oh god. Oh god. It is!" Laughter like scattershot ricocheted around the warehouse. "It _is_ a relief. Whew. Huge fucking weight off my mind. I never have to worry about him again. Never have to wonder if he's okay, if he's happy, if he needs money, or shoes or -" 

"Angel." 

"I'm free." 

"Angel!" Spike grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to get his eyes to focus. "Listen to me. Listen. You need to hold it together a while yet, all right? This is a hard thing, maybe the hardest thing you'll ever have to bear. I don't pretend to know. But you'll get through it. You're gonna get through it." 

"Through it? Oh hell, Spike. I think I'm already on the other side. It's you and me at the end of the world, right?" 

"Ri-ight," Spike agreed cautiously. "But?" 

"Tell you one thing," Angel said, ear cocked towards the roof. His demonic glee was back with a bipolar vengeance and he clapped Spike on the shoulder. "Days like this? I'm damned glad to be an Irishman." 

"What?" The sudden non sequitur prevented Spike from making his own connections - between the rattle deep in his bones, and the rhythmic, subsonic thumping in the distance. 

"Fee Fie Fo Fum smells the blood of an Englishman." Angel grinned. "That's you, brother." 

They rose in fluid tandem, their bodies preparing for action without their minds engaged. "Don't see how. Haven't had an Englishman in a dog's age." 

The door of the loading dock banged. Spike jumped. Angel whooped. It banged again. Shook and shuddered. Chains and ropes and pulleys rattled, and Spike imagined some giant's clumsy fingers trying to pry it open. Cursed Angel for putting the image in his head. Why were they standing here? Their swords were gone, buried under a ton of rubble with Angel Jr. What idiot force kept them standing here weaponless, thinking they could fight a giant and have a chance in hell? Morons the both of them. When the bay door rolled up like a cheap shade, he fully expected to see a huge hairy paw reach in and grab him. 

Illyria was something of a disappointment, looking both frazzled, and terribly focused. She raced to where Gunn lay, scooped him up, blankets and all, and said, "We must flee. Now." 

Spike was already halfway across the room, but Angel hadn't moved. In fact he had a stubborn set to his shoulders, and a low slung brow that made Spike feel all nostalgic. Almost grateful to be irritated. "Flee?" Angel said. "As in run away?" 

"Yes," she replied, doing just that towards the bay door. "I have commandeered transport with sufficient fuel to carry us beyond the immediate domain of my - the Old Ones. One of you must negotiate the roads through the city." 

"Hallelujah," Spike muttered, moving gratefully toward his salvation. 

"So. That's it?" Angel said. "The Great and Powerful Oz steals a car, and runs away?" 

"How can it be theft when there are none to claim ownership?" 

"Right. See, there? Perfectly sound reasoning." Spike said, looking at Angel with reasonableness plastered all over his face. The subsonic rumble outside was becoming the closer, louder, actual sonic rumble of broken water mains and crumpled steel girders. "What say we all pile into the purloined vehicle, and go for a drive then?" 

"What say you take Gunn, and find him some help. I'll stay here and fight the bad guys." 

He was twirling a piece of rusty rebar, bouncing on the balls of his feet, demon suited up, and crackling with energy like he was fresh from a locker room pep talk and ready to destroy the visiting team. Embracing Spike's philosophy much more eagerly than Spike at the moment. The visiting team would just step on his head and that would be the end of it. 

Illyria's laughter was far more unnerving than the footsteps of giants. For one, they'd never heard her laugh before. And for another, it seemed so ordinary, and so Fred-like, as if Angel were being silly rather than completely off his nut. "Would you engage a single ant in battle, half-breed? Or simply crush it between your fingers and go on about your business? Your posture is foolishly self-important. You are less than nothing to them. Why can't you understand that?" She shifted Charles Gunn in her arms. He made a croaking noise which turned out to be words. 

"Drive. Angel. Please. Please drive." 

Gunn's plea, coming so soon on the heels of a discussion regarding his status as both "loved one" and "dead one," seemed to have some effect on Angel. Not the expected one. 

It was as if he'd pressed the pause button on his demonic persona so he could pop into the kitchen and fix a snack. Twenty long, long seconds later, the vampire features dissipated, smooth as buttermilk, no effort, very little fanfare. 

"Fine," he sighed. "I'll drive." Dramatically, he tossed the piece of rebar aside with a resounding, satisfying clatter. Spike, in the midst of snagging a length of chain to use as a weapon, shot him a look of annoyed disbelief. He picked the rebar up again. Dramatic gestures would have to wait. 

***

In the front of the vehicle, the half-breeds argued navigation. It was dusk. Their eyes were keener in the darkness, but the cataclysm had left the streets of the city a great maze rife with dead ends. Whatever urge she'd had to gather her meager forces, plan strategies, and wage war, now struck Illyria as . . . misguided. Here, she and her motley collection of minions were beneath the notice of anything that mattered, no more significant than the microscopic parasites that colonized a human fingernail. 

"Turn here, turn here!" Spike cried, thrusting his arm in front of Angel's face. His finger jabbed emphatically on the driver's side window, indicating a building of apparent significance. 

Angel knocked the arm away. "Doesn't look like the drive-through is open, Spike." 

"Very funny. Turnturnturn - aw, crap! Look, if you're not going to take direction then let me drive!" 

"I know how to get to I-5. Been here a little longer than you." 

"Really? Why you don't call it the Five, then, like all the natives?" 

"It matters naught which path you take," Illyria intoned from the backseat. "The concept of choice is meaningless. In this place, every direction leads to your doom." 

There was a moment of ponderous silence, then Angel burst out laughing. "Thanks for the weather report, Sunshine, but we can look out the window ourselves." 

"What's got you blue, Blue? You were all gung ho back at that warehouse." 

Nothing had her. Nothing bound her. A terrible burden, freedom. A loud pop sounded off the left rear fender. Then another, and Angel was locked in single combat with the steering mechanism. 

"I thought you said they weren't after us anymore?" Spike cried, bracing himself against the dashboard. 

Foolish vampires. Their confidence in their own importance was strangely endearing, but now was not the time to coddle them. "The Old Ones do not waste their efforts in pursuit of creatures such as you," Illyria explained patiently. "As I have said. They spoke to me." 

Angel seemed uninterested in what the Old Ones had imparted to her. " _Somebody's_ shooting at us," he said, teeth gritted, hands tight around the steering wheel. 

He was an idiot. As if her kind would trifle with any weapon save their own bodies. The Old Ones had indeed shared a truth with her, but she'd been too diminished to listen. Spent too much time railing against fate to understand it. She touched the gift where it lay against her breastbone. A treasure not meant for this world. 

"I'm guessing it's the blokes in that van," Spike said. The van in question, an old ambulance with the word 'ambulance' obviously painted over, took advantage of a clear stretch of road to close the distance. 

Illyria watched the pursuing ambulance with weary detachment. Her lack of insight, foresight, hindsight had crippled her, blinded her to the most obvious truth. 

"I _told_ you to turn, didn't I? Bloody well told you, but nooo, you've gotta do it your way, always has to be your bloody call, don't know why I bother? Shitshitshit, there's another one!" 

A decrepit pick-up truck peeled out of a strip mall parking lot, in far closer pursuit than the van. A rifle barrel thrust out from the passenger side window. Illyria flattened herself over the body of Charles Gunn as a shell punched a hole through the top of the rear window, passed over Angel's shoulder and went out through a Jurassic-era 8-track tape deck. Whatever it damaged within the vehicle's propulsion mechanism caused Angel to lose control completely. 

They careened wildly from one side of the street to the other, bounced over the median and the curb on the far side. Angel's attempts to circumvent physical laws meant the difference between crashing into the side of a building, or crashing into a bank of coin operated vacuums stationed like sentries around a carwash. He chose the coin-ops. The stop was no less bone-jarring as a result. The car door on the left was crumpled inward, and had forced Angel practically into Spike's lap. The right side door appeared to be operational, but Spike's body blocked it. He roused with a curse, putting a hand to the gash in his forehead. Gave Angel a weak shove. "Get on your own side." 

Angel straightened and immediately began patting the floor for the length of rebar. Now there were two rifle barrels trained on them, but no one inside was foolish enough to get out yet. 

"Why do you hesitate?" Illyria asked. "You have both slain far greater foes than they today." 

"Yeh, but they're human," Spike said. "Can't just up and kill them. It's a soul thing. Cramps a bloke's style." 

Angel's chuckle suggested that it was less a soul thing than a Spike thing. "He's right. Besides, we need information, and they've got it. We go along with it for now. They're bound to be suspicious of _her_ though." He did not bother to look at her when he said this. 

"Play it by ear then. If they're mercenaries we take 'em down. If they're not, then Blue here is our prisoner and we need help for our friend Charlie. Can you handle that? Blue? Earth to god? You still with us?" 

"Why do you wish me to play your prisoner when I can alter my appearance? The original form of this shell will seem non-threatening." 

Both Spike and Angel twitched. Even Charles Gunn, half dead and completely unconscious, seemed to shudder in aversion. Illyria considered cracking their skulls together, on the minute chance that this would allow reason to seep in through the fractures. Their squeamishness about the shell was irritating under the best of conditions; now it was a liability. "You would eschew logic because you cannot bear to see the original form of the shell?" 

Angel twisted in the seat to face her, baring his teeth. "Say," he began, with chilling cheeriness, "have I told you lately that you're a pathetic excuse for godhead, a pain in my ass and also about as bright as a broken light bulb?" 

"Angel," Spike interrupted. Her pet jerked his chin to indicate movement. There was a person on the roof and a couple more edging into position around the building. "They've got another car round back too." Angel nodded his awareness. Spike flashed Illyria a grim smile. 

"Here's the situation, ducks. We've got ourselves a pack of humans. All male. Various states of excitement by the smell of them. Now, just in case you haven't been paying attention, humans - men in particular -are disgusting, filthy opportunists, especially when they run in packs. So, we're thinking it's easier for us if you look like something they should be wary of than something they could fuck to death?" 

"Personally," Angel piped in, "I think it would be kind of hilarious to watch them try. Kinda slapstick, you know. Crowbars, giant pliers? Cracking open that lobster shell of hers to get to the juicy parts. Boy, would their faces be red when they discover she hasn't got any." He chuckled to himself. 

"Not helping," Spike said. He was smiling though, as if he too found the idea amusing. 

"Fred would tell you that she was capable of kicking righteous butt." She looked out the window. The door to the ambulance van was opening. It seemed very far away. A trick of perspective and time. 

Spike reached over the seat. 

_I know_ , she thought, as he looped a length of chain about her wrists. _I understand what Varuliytha and Yscatha were trying to tell me. This isn't my dimension of origin._

"Out of the car, please," came the shout. "Nice and slow." 

***

_Half a league, half a league, half a league onward._ Giles leaned back, grateful for the transitory comfort of the rented limousine as Andrew nosed the monstrous vehicle down the traffic-clogged 110. They'd wasted six excruciating hours in customs, as though the flight itself hadn't been long enough. He had Lydia's connections to thank for the authentic clearances; his own contacts, also extremely good in their various fields of endeavor, provided the paper trails for the scythe. But they'd not reckoned on the red boots that matched the weapon. Buffy had neglected to keep all her charge card receipts. It had been their sad duty to retreat, abandoning the Slayer to do battle with Customs all alone. He fervently hoped that while the inspectors haggled with her, they wouldn't carelessly give her access to that axe. 

Across the capacious passenger compartment, Willow curled up on the buttery leather seats, tracking the number two Slayer's location on the laptop. _"Shit, there's someone moving, over by that Texaco station - Folasade, cover me!"_ Faith's voice, crackling faintly over the com. Giles leaned forward, the better to catch the staticky com reports. 

Just beyond the I-10 interchange, a blockade of khaki-colored Hummers and at least one tank blocked the highway, funneling the converging line of cars onto the interstate or out the exits to the surface streets. First checkpoint. Giles lowered the window and handed the soldier their clearances. Grimly, the soldier waved them on, past phalanxes of radioactive orange traffic cones, until it was impossible to drive any further. Two twitches of Willow's index finger later, and there was a glamour to hide the limo and a don't-touch spell besides, just for good measure. 

Beyond the cordons of hastily erected barbed wire was a pocket Armageddon. Willow looked impressed, and not just by damaged buildings. "Wow. Magic-quake, Richter 9.1. Every aura in L.A. County must be higgledy-piggledy." She picked her way gingerly through the rubble, looking for the right conjunction of ley lines to do her locator spell. "I can't . . . Angel wouldn't have done this on purpose, would he? I know he has soul issues, but I stuck it in good and tight last time. I practically used Soul Bondo. I can't believe he'd go Godzilla on us, even if -" She bit her lip and her words. "Could Angel really have done all of this? Did he have the juice?" 

"That's what we're here to ascertain." Giles moved with Andrew into the ground zero zone, one step at a time past all the yellow tape. Wolfram  & Hart, L.A. Corporate Offices, now a vast jackstraw tumble of brick and glass and steel. Most of the ground-level lobby was still there, covered by debris, though some of that had evidently fallen in to the lower levels. Ash drifted up with every step they took - no, not ash, glass. Pulverized glass, lying in glittering drifts that crunched beneath the soles of his boots. Overhead, metal groaned uneasily in the wind, threatening further collapse. 

"It might not be a Godzilla scenario," Andrew said earnestly. "Gorgo's mom was just misunderstood. Or, you know, King Kong?" 

"I'm sure Angel would appreciate the comparison," Giles muttered, fishing a handkerchief from his pocket to press over his nose. 

"You think he was brought down by love?" Willow crouched down and spread the map on the glittering, deadly floor, scattered the bones, said the words. Faint lights crawled across the surface of the map and down the creases running like fault lines across the paper city. Willow studied it, her head cocked. "Nada. If Angel's here, he isn't on this plane." She frowned. "Maybe if I try it a little to the north . . . " 

"Don't step inside the tape," Giles warned her. "Those reports didn't do this justice. It's not remotely stable in here. We shouldn't have come in so far." 

"But we can't come all this way and have the answer be nothing!" Willow cried, distressed. "I mean, at this point I'd settle for forty-two! At least in Sunnydale we knew what happened. Big boom, big crater, big sign saying, 'Spike did it.' It must have cost Angel something, you know, to ask for help. I wish..." She left the words hanging, and finished up with, "I liked Fred Burkle." 

Angel had sounded unwontedly desperate that day, looking for help Giles had been rather smug about denying. If he'd talked to Angel when he had the chance... traded information, made peace, done bloody something . . . instead he'd sent Faith off to the Cleveland Hellmouth, and let Buffy retreat (too long) to Rome. To keep them both out of Angel's path, whatever it was. And rightly or wrongly, even as he was looking at the result, he was still selfishly glad he'd done it. "The whole alliance Angel set up was deeply disturbing. We still don't know what side he was on. In any case - here, Andrew, don't mess about with -" 

The moan of overstressed steel became a shriek, and overhead a sagging girder began its majestic, slow-motion collapse. Andrew froze in terror, the whites of his eyes luminous in the shadow of his doom. 

" _Ciao, ragazzi!_ Look, I won that argument in customs!" Buffy swept in, tossing Andrew casually out of danger with her free hand, bracing the girder overhead with the axe in the other. "As if I'd ever leave the boots behind, after -" She gave the whole company a once-over, just to be sure that they weren't even more fragile than she thought they were, last time she looked. Or standing in her key light, for that matter, or blocking her best extension move. "- fighting three evil witches for them, the day I -" With all her charges safe, she stepped nimbly out of the way and let the girder come crashing down, and the foyer became entirely dust. "- finally spotted them on sale at the Prada outlet in Tuscany -" 

There she was, flourishing the axe to make her point about the perils of power shopping, eying with interest the fragment of carpet that was visible, maybe because it was clearly cripplingly expensive, thereby shedding some light on the recent fiscal and social status of her ex. She owned the room, all right; she'd own the town, given an hour or two. A pity about Rodeo Drive, but maybe they'd mount a fire sale just to please her. 

"- when anyone could see they matched the axe and so it was my destiny -" 

But his Slayer was Teflon. Not a hair out of place. The axe had caught the sunlight, and it shone so bright that Giles could see in it still a reflection of the heart of Angel's vanished kingdom. 

"- as clear as if I'd already seen them in a dream -" 

Giles looked around; the advance party was bedraggled, jetlagged, stressed, and covered with dust. But not a speck of it dared to cling to that shiny red patent leather. It was another triumph. She had met the enemy, and now as always they were hers, or they were dust. 

" - that in the end, they would be mine." 

  
  
  
  
  
 

© 2005 tea at the ford members


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